Thoughts & Decisions (and experiences!) on 12 weeks screening tests

So I was supposed to be a downs baby myself. My mum had an amniocentesis done to verify and it came back negative. I know people say that it doesn’t matter to them but it’s not an 18 year commitment. It’s full life. If your child had downs they would never leave home and you would be caring for them well into your retirement. With the other conditions they would be seriously disabled or not live for very long. I think the tests are there to help parents make informed choices and save themselves real heartache. It’s all about quality of life for the parents and the child.

We got the screening as we wanted to be prepared if our baby had any of these conditions. Also I believe babies with Edwards and Pataus can have some more serious abnormalities so I would want to know for that reason as well.

I had all the tests and I'm glad I did - i came back very low risk for them all, but even if the results had been different I needed to be prepared!

I had this so wasn't sent for any further testing. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to know because I know Edward and Patau syndrome has a high chance of being incompatible with life x

I had the testing and it came back high risk for all 3. 1 in 140 for downs and 1 in 131 for Edwards and Pataus. The specialist midwife called me the next day to tell me and gave me my options.1. The invasive testing which carried risk of miscsrrisge2. The private harmony testing3. Do nothing and have an additional scan at 16 weeks to look closely at the baby etc.The way I looked at it was - what are the chances of having 140 marbles in a bag one of which is a different colour to the rest and me actually choosing that marble? Same with the 131. May sound selfish and as if I put my baby at risk but I believe whats meant to be will be. So I personslly didn't want to risk another miscarriage after already having 2 previously so I decided to do nothing and have an extra scan.I was then booked in with the fetal medical team for an scan which lasted 45 minutes and was told by the looks of the scan everything seems perfect. Every scan I have had to date has been the same. I am now currently 33+6 and the only complications I have encountered is being diagnosed with gestational diabetes and obstetric cholestasis which means I'm likely to be induced at 37 weeks.Good luck and enjoy your pregnancy ☺️

I had the screening done and wish now I hadn’t.Our results came back with a high downs score of 1:141. If it had been 1:150, we would have never have been called. At 1:141 we were offered 3 choices. An Amniocentesis which carried a risk of miscarriage, a private blood test costing £380 or do nothing.We chose the Harmony blood test which failed twice!!! Don’t judge me, but I worried throughout my whole pregnancy that the baby had Downs, as did my SO. It totally ruined my pregnancy experience and my partner couldn’t bring himself to be excited.My baby was born without Downs. If I could go back I would not have the testing done. It caused unnecessary worry for me.

I am currently 24 weeks pregnant and we had the screening done at 12 weeks. We were in a similar situation as I didn’t want the screening done but hubby did. I VERY naively thought we might as well have it done for the hubby’s sake as I was so sure it’d come back fine anyway. A few days later we got the call to say we had a 1:7 chance of having a baby with Downs due to my low Papp-A levels. We made the decision to pay £360 for the private Harmony blood test and waited an agonising week for the results. Thankfully all came back fine and our statistic is now 1:5000. I don’t regret having the screening though as now they have picked up my low Papp-A levels I have extra growth scans to monitor baby and my placenta functioning. If it wasn’t for the screening my low Papp-A wouldn’t have been picked up.... silver lining for the worrying week we had!! Hope this helps in some way xx

I didn’t have the tests done and I’m so glad I didn’t :) it’s an anxious time anyway and takes ages to get the results, which could give a false positive :( and cause more stress! My partners bother is disabled and still is very loved and has a great life, so we felt it would make no difference to how we felt but would avoid any additional stress :) it’s a very personal decision though! Good luck making yours x

We had the testing for E/P but not Downs. I decided that I wasn't prepared to take the next test if it came back as high for Downs as wasn't prepared to risk a miscarriage so didn't see much point in testing in the first place either.The midwife seemed quite confused by our decision and questioned us about it quite extensively. In the end we told her that we would deal with a baby with Downs if it came to that and didn't want any unnecessary risk to our baby. I felt that E/P are much more serious and not something we would have coped with so wanted to know about those.Good luck with your decision.