Actually, they consider you AMA or Advance Maternal Age at 35. The high risk obgyns that I'm going to consider you AMA at 34!!! Crazy!! Anyways, since I've had 3 unexplained miscarriages which may have been caused by genectic issues, they just don't know and I AM 35, will be just shy of 36 when I deliver actually! I guess the deal is at age 35 your chance of having a Downs Syndrome baby is 1 in 277. The chance for amnio causing miscariage is about the same. Amnio is really the only DEFINITVE test for Downs. There is what they call the three marker test, they do 2 different blood draws to check for proteins and certian levels and then a high definition ultrasound to measure the space or amount of fluid behind the baby's neck. The more space or fluid there, the higher the risk for Downs. This 3 marker test is the one that has a high probably of false positives. Something like one in 250 of these tests will come back positive but only a very small fraction actually have babys with Downs. If the 3 markers test comes out positive, then they want to do the amnio to be for sure. You can skip the 3 marker test and go right to amnio if you want but the 3 marker test doesn't hurt the baby or you at all and Amnio isn't any fun and can cause miscarriage. So, its all very hard to know what to do!
Persoanlly, I'm not sure I could terminate my pregnancy unless they tell me my kids have three heads or something not compatable with life. Although my husband has a different view. Luckily, neither one of us have any genectic issues in the family tree. I'm still not sure how much testing I'm going to do but thats why I made the appt with the genectic counsler. I need to find out if they work indepently from the labs doing the testing though. I'd hate to get biased advise from someone who can profit from the testing that they are suggesting! I'll let you know what the counsler says!
-------------------- Taking it one day at a time.....
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Re:Testing
