Atlanta Partnership Offers New Prenatal Test for Genetic Disorders
An Atlanta health partnership will be the first in the Southeast to offer a new prenatal test that can more accurately detect genetic conditions like Down syndrome in unborn babies.
Some pregnant women may undergo invasive procedures to rule out genetic disorders in their unborn babies. Doctors want to reduce the number of women who may receive these invasive tests unnecessarily.
That’s why Northside Hospital and Atlanta Perinatal Consultants have partnered to offer a new prenatal test.
Lawrence Stone is a doctor with Atlanta Perinatal Consultants.
“We can avoid – and are going to be able to avoid – many unnecessary invasive tests,” he says. “And so we’ll have less of an opportunity to cause concern unnecessarily in terms of a mother’s assessment of what her risk is.”
The test requires a blood sample from the mother. That blood carries fragments of her unborn child’s DNA. Labs will then check the fetus’s DNA for abnormalities.
Ariosa Diagnostics, the company that developed the test, says it looks at DNA directly to paint a more accurate picture of the baby’s risk. Other methods randomly sample DNA. The company says the test will generally be cheaper than what’s on the market.
Still, Stone says high-risk patients need to know their options.
“This is the beginning of a new methodology of testing pregnancies early with reliable information,” he says. “But we all have to be very careful that we continue to do this and introduce this responsibly into clinical practice.”
Such responsibilities include making genetic counseling available for pregnancies that have higher risks for chromosome disorders.
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