I will be 41 when my baby is born in January. I had one miscarriage last year, but still opted for the CVS. I know I could not handle a disabled child and I wanted a definite answer. At 40, the risk from the CVS was about the same or lower than the risk of having a baby with chromosomal abnormalities. It is not just Down syndrome, other trisomies (like trisomy 13 or 18) are more severe and can kill the baby in the womb or very shortly after birth. The risk for having a baby with Down syndrome is 1 in a 100 for a 40 year old woman, but the risk for having a baby with ANY chromosomal abnormality is much higher, about 1 in 70.

The statistics for the miscarriage that you see for the test are usually old. The numbers are from when they did the test without the ultrasound guidance. Now the ultrasound is used, so the procedure is even safer. It also depends on the doctor too, how experience they are doing the procedure.

I am very happy that I had CVS. It gave me peace of mind, I could start bonding with the pregnancy. Up until this point I did not even want to think of myself as pregnant, in case something was wrong. I wanted the test as soon as possible, the CVS is done between week 10 and 13. The procedure was quick and pretty much painless, I did not have any problems at all, not a drop of blood (I had some unexplained pretty heavy bleeding at 6 weeks, so I was fully expecting something). The full results take up to 2 weeks, but they can give you some preliminary results already on the next day.

Good luck with whatever you decide.