Prenatal Screening

• A chromosome abnormality, disorder, aberration, or mutation is a missing/ extra or irregular portion of chromosomal DNA. It can be from an atypical number of chromosomes or a structural abnormality in one or more chromosomes.
• Chromosome abnormalities typically occur as a result of errors in one or more of the following: meiosis, mitosis, maternal age or environment.
• Every lady is at a risk of having a baby with chromosomal problems and needs screening.

Down Syndrome is the commonest chromosomal abnormality seen . Every mother is at a risk of having a child with Down Syndrome and this increases with the mother’s age.

Thus every pregnancy  should be screened for the chromosomal problems.

Uterine artery Doppler :

Uterine arteries are the blood vessels which supply the uterus. Uterine artery Doppler at 11-14 weeks of gestation identifies a high proportion of women who develop PIH (Increased blood pressure during pregnancy) ,severe pre-eclampsia (PE) and/or fetal growth restriction..

The combination of maternal  characteristics, including medical and obstetric history, uterine artery Doppler PI , mean arterial pressure (MAP)  can identify a high proportion of pregnancies at high-risk for preterm PE. Such early identification of the high-risk group for preterm PE is important because the risk is substantially reduced by the prophylactic use of low-dose aspirin starting from 11-13 weeks.

Preterm labour is one of the  major causes of perinatal mortality and morbidity.It can be caused by various factors between 24 and 37 weeks. Risk factors include previous preterm labor, cervical surgery, urinary tract infections, and multiple (multifetal) pregnancies.

Transvaginal ultrasound is considered the ‘gold standard’ measurement when assessing cervical length.cervical length screening is done for the high risk population by transvaginal scan at 16 weeks of pregnancy.