Are you a first time pregnant
mother, or perhaps you haven’t had a baby in quite a few years? Finding
out that you are pregnant can be stressful and exciting enough without having
to worry about such things as the baby’s health. This is why it is
important to seek prenatal testing as soon as you find out that you are
pregnant. What this does is allow for the doctors to give your health
condition an overall look, and determine if you and the baby are healthy.
Let’s take a look at what types of prenatal tests you can expect.
Although most prenatal tests are
performed towards the beginning of your pregnancy, there are still many more
that happen throughout till the end. But the first thing that a doctor
will check is the over all health of the mother. These tests look at her
blood pressure, weight, medical history, as well as blood and urine
tests. The urine tests are what doctors use to check during prenatal
tests and see if you may have gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, and any
other bladder infections. Furthermore, the blood pressure checks will
help the doctor determine if there are any blood pressure problems that may
require a secondary birth plan.
And when your doctor checks your
blood itself, he or she is looking to see if you have any problems like Rh
negative disease, anemia, or if you may have any STD’s that will effect your
baby and/or delivery. And finally, another of the first few tests will
involve a vaginal pap and smear test to see if you have any bacteria, cervical
cells that seem abnormal, and they will check for any STD’s that may not
present with a blood test. Further blood tests also look for hormones and
AFP screening during prenatal testing.
As you can see, blood tests show
your doctor a lot about your body and your baby. And because your
hormones tend to go crazy during pregnancy, they need to check certain levels
like your human chorionic gonadotropin hormone. If they find that this
hormone is high in your body, it could mean that your baby is at risk for Down syndrome, and a low level can mean that you have an ectopic, or rather, tubal
pregnancy. Moreover, two other blood tests called AFP and
alphafetoprotein tests look for your AFP, hCG, and estridol levels as part of
the prenatal tests. The reason for this is to ensure that your baby isn’t
experiencing any neural tube defects that could turn into spina bifida or Down
syndrome.
The next prenatal test is more
popular with all the expecting parents. We are talking about the
ultrasound, which is commonly done at least once during the pregnancy, and more
often with complicated pregnancies. During this procedure your doctor
will check the development of your baby, and look for any other health issues
or abnormalities that may be present. What’s more, often times the doctor can
even check for the sex of the baby.
And finally, the prenatal test that
most mothers dread is the amniocentesis. This prenatal test is more
commonly used on women that become pregnant over the age of 35, or those women
that have certain family disorders that get passed down. The way that
this test is performed is by taking a small amount of amniotic fluid from your
uterus.
However, if the need to test for the
conditions diagnosed through this method come up early on in the pregnancy, or
if there is not enough amniotic fluid for the test, an alternate test is
given. For this test, the doctor will take a sample of fetal blood from
the umbilical cord. This type of test is called chorionic villus, and can
detect other problems with your fetus like low oxygen levels or fetal
anemia. It is for these reasons and more that ensuring you have the right
medical attention early on in your pregnancy is very important.
There are also additional prenatal
tests that are gaining popularity which are prenatal genetic testing,prenatal
genetic testing and prenatal dna testing.
