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For many women experiencing infertility, maintaining a pregnancy once conceived can be just as difficult as getting pregnant in the first place. Also, many are of what is considered "advanced" maternal age. The result is that a large percentage rely on several diagnostic procedures to determine the health of their pregnancies and their babies.
For some time now, there's been much debate on the usefulness of certain measures taken to assess fetal health and development. Most notably, the debate has centered around the use of a combination of tests used to determine the presence of Down syndrome, a chromosomal anomaly resulting from the occurrance of three 21st chromosomes in the baby. Typically, the tests used are:
These tests are generally used in cases of:
While women experiencing infertility and/or recurrent pregnancy loss are certainly not the only ones who undergo such testing procedures or are concerned about the outcomes, it may be the case that women who've strived long and hard to conceive or who have experienced prior miscarriage do experience more anxiety about their pregnancies in general. Early on in the pregnancy process, talk among the group centers on things like beta hCG levels and vigilance for the least discernable symptoms. When it comes to the issues of embryonic or fetal testing, the discussion can be increasingly tense.
© Tracy Morris
