Information about prenatal testing does not necessarily increase uptake

BMJ 1996;312:508 (24 February)

Letters

Information about prenatal testing does not necessarily increase uptake

EDITOR,--J G Thornton and colleagues report the effect of givingwomen extra, non-directive information about prenatal screening.¹They found that ultrasound examination to look for structuralabnormality in the fetus was almost universally accepted (99%)whereas screening for Down's syndrome was accepted by only aboutone third of the women.

In the first half of a normal pregnancy expectant women areusually offered a scan to enable them and their partner to seetheir baby, to check the baby's size, or to search for structuralabnormality. A search for structural abnormality is not performeduntil 18-20 weeks, when most of the fetal organs can be assessed.If a woman would like to see her baby but considers abortionto be morally wrong she can have a scan earlier in pregnancy.This is practical from 12-13 weeks, when the examination isbrief and usually includes measurement of the baby's head, which. . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

A randomised trial of three methods of giving information about prenatal testing: J G Thornton, J Hewison, R J Lilford, and A Vail
BMJ 1995 311: 1127-1130. [Abstract] [Full Text]