Down syndrome risk

Hi all

I had an ob appt today and was told I have a 1 in 600 chance of having a downs baby. The ob wasnt really concerned about this and said the risk of having an amniocentesis was higher and said it was mainly aged related (I am 33 years old). My risk for my second child was 1 in about 2500 which wasnt all that long ago considering he is only 8 months old so I am wondering why the risk has gone up so much in only a year. The ob had to rush off to a delivery so I couldnt quiz her much and now that I am home and have started thinking about the risk and it seems high. Do people have any further info they can add re risks etc - the ob didnt see too worried so I guess I shouldnt.

Thanks
Jem

Thanks Caro. You are a wealth of knowledge. I am glad your CVS came back perfect - that must have been a huge relief.

There were no other indicators to suggest downs - the skin fold was normal so I guess I am worrying unnecessarily. I am obviously a bit of a worry wart LOL - need to start thinking more positively!!

Thanks again
Jem

I did have the scan and the bloods and all the ob said before she had to run off to a delivery was that the skin on the back of the neck looked fine. I just thought it strange that it was only just over a year ago that I had the same test done with DS2 and the results were 1 in about 2500. I thought it was a big difference in the space of only a year.

Hi Jemima
I think I am the person Caro was talking about :dunno: We had the NT scan with our DD, which came back at 1 in 20 000. We fell pregnant with our DS when she was 6 months old and our risk came back at 1 in 278 for downs and 1 in 98 for trisomy 13 and 18. Turns out our baby had triploidy. We decided to have an amnio for a few reasons, mainly because the risk of tri outweighed the risk of miscarriage from amnio. Max also had other markers on the 12 week unltraound that signified a problem.

Honestly, if I my risk came back at 1 in 600, I would wait until the 18 week scan to check for soft markers on the scan, then decide on an amnio if it showed a possible problem.

If there is one thing I have learnt from this it's not to put too much weight on numbers. There was another lady whose risk was 1 in 5 and her CVS came back perfectly normal.

I hope you can enjoy the rest of your pregnancy.

Hi Jemima,

If your results are 1:600 i don't know why your OB is saying it is high risk as i was told anything below 1:300 is high risk. I would try and see your OB again and ask some more questions as he/she shouldn't leave you waiting like this.

Mine came back 1:294 and i had the amnio done at 16wks which came back everything fine.

Thanks for the info - it was really interesting and made me understand my results a bit better. I have to go back to the ob tomorrow as they werent able to get a good heart beat trace (could hear it but due to baby position they struggled to maintain the trace for very long) so I will ask about the skin thickness then and try to get a bit more info from her.

Hope you are able to get some more answers tomorrow Jemima.

What hospital are you going to in Adelaide ?

1 in 600 isn't anything to be worried about in particular and is not a high risk. 1 in 250 or 300 is where the screening test goes "positive" but that's an artificial threshold chosen simply because its similar to the risks of losing the baby to an amnio or cvs, not because 1 in 300 is noticeably riskier than 1 in 310... Only one third of one percent of babies with a positive screening result will have down's.

Your age related risk will be about the same or slightly "worse" than 1:600 which means your tests showed a pretty average or slightly better than average result to not change your age related risk much. Your previous result of 2500 was probably because your test results were much further away from an average result, to the lower risk side of things. There's nothing really of concern in the difference between the two results. Each baby and pregnancy is different and it may just be that this time your baby's results are much more average than your last one!

Mine was 1 in 20 for downs and 1 in 38 for trisomy 13 and 18 and I am only just 31. We decided to have the CVS and everything came back fine. Our blood results, together with a NT of 6mm + gave us these results. Yours sound fine to me, although i cant give you an answer for the major differences within a year.
Hey Clare, good to see you around. I was following you up as your test, mine and Caros was happening around the same time. This site is so good for support. Looks like your pregnant again....congrats.
All the best
Melissa

Jemima how did you get on with your OB ?