Pregnancy/blood test question...

[LisaNJ25]

My left pregnancy my AFP test came back a 1 in 80 chance of Down Syndrom. I had an amnio down. I was a wreck for 2 weeks to get the results. Everything turned out fine and I have a healthy 6 month old girl. She does have 11 toes though

I am going for the test next week for this pregnancy.

The AFP test has a high amont of false positives. I wish her the best of luck

 

[kimwim8]

Still, you don't want to tell your friend that all of these are false positives; it could be a true indicator.

You're right...thanks for the information. I really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences.

 

[mtemm]

I failed my triple screen, it came back low, and I opted for an amnio. all was fine!

 

[jajuan]

With child #4, I tested positive. (The other three I opted out of the test, but last baby was different dr. and a quack) Anyway, I went to specialist and had ultrasound...decided not to go any further because everything looked great and it was. Turns out my OB was WAY off on my dates for testing.

ETA: I foolishly let the doctor that delivered DS#4 talk me into it. My first doctor gave me the information and when on my next appointment I told him I didn't want it (w/DS#1, DD#2 and DS#3) he told me that was a great choice...that there were too many false positives.

 

[robinb]

Of course, such losses may be rare, but definitely not worth the risk.

Not worth the risk for you. Many others do not share your opinion.

 

[CK8269]

Has anyone encounter any case of positive result for amnio test, but the baby turns up healthy and normal?

 

[mushumadness]

define normal

my sister in law had that test and it came back negative, but jordan was still born with downs syndrome, we love her to bits and wouldnt swap her, she had two other children after jordan and refused to have the test again.

I wouldnt trust the test though

 

[RachelEllen]

The confusing thing is, this isn't really the sort of test that comes back positive or negative. It just adjusts your odds. For example, everyone has some risk of having a baby with Downs syndrome. If you are 35, this risk is about 1 in 200. They then do this blood test, and based on statistics, they can adjust this risk to be higher or lower. If the adjusted risk is worse than 1 in 200, they call the test positive. If it's better, they call it negative. So you are still going to see people with 'negative' tests have a baby with Downs. You are still going to see a lot, most, in fact, people with positive tests have baby's without the disease.

The reason the test is called 'positive' at 1 in 200 risk, is that this is the same risk of losing a baby with an amnio. So a positive test basically means that your baby has more of a risk having the disease (whatever it tested positive for, I just used Downs as it's most common), than you are risking losing the baby with definitive testing. Your age is really important too. If you are 45, the test may actually lower your risk of a baby with Downs, but it still may be large enough to be positive.

So the more important information for your friend is what her adjusted risk turned out to be.

The level of these hormones depends on the size of the baby. So being off in the dates is a really common reason they are wrong. An amnio is also the only test that will give you a real 'positive' or 'negative' answer. (not perfect, but pretty close). Even a level II U/S will only adjust your risk.

The only other factor I can think of to mention is that you didn't say what the test was positive for. I'm guessing a genetic problem, since she is being sent to a genetics doctor. And all the above information can be true for Trisomy 13 and 18. You actually get an oppostite result (low vs high hormone levels) on the AFP for Downs vs Spina Bifida. Spina Bifida is much easier to look for on ultrasound than Downs.

 

[terri01p]

I think it's better to have the test and know what's going on now, than it is to find out whenever you have a baby, my dd was born with spinal bifida (23 years ago back before they tested for it ), we were clueless what was going on, it took away from the birth, I even got a lot of condolences card, instead of the joy of a first baby, it was horrible, if we had known we could have been more prepared.

 

[aprilgail2]

I opted out of all those tests...to me they are pointless..I was having her regardless of if she had downs or not and their respones was "well this way you would be able to prepare yourself if she does have it"...no thanks..I will prepare when the time comes..what is...is... as far as I am concerned..amnios can cause you to lose to the baby...no thanks to all those testsl for me!

 

[Christine]

Has anyone encounter any case of positive result for amnio test, but the baby turns up healthy and normal?

CK8269--I don't believe so. An amnio is about 99.99999% accurate. The "triple test" discussed in this thread is not overly accurate.

 

[minkydog]

I opted out of all those tests...to me they are pointless..I was having her regardless of if she had downs or not and their respones was "well this way you would be able to prepare yourself if she does have it"...no thanks..I will prepare when the time comes..what is...is... as far as I am concerned..amnios can cause you to lose to the baby...no thanks to all those testsl for me!

I felt exactly the same way. A lot of people thought we were crazy not to have done one, since i was 40. Statistics do not comfort me--I figure if it happens to me, then it's 100%; if it happens to someone else, 0%. i knew that no matter what, we wouldn't terminate and I didn't want to ruin the whole pregnacy grie ving future losses. Plenty of time to grieve. We knew we were up to the challenge of raising any child, even a handicapped child.

As a matter of fact, my baby did have a serious chromosome disorder(Pallister-Killian syndrome) that could have been detected on amnio. However, had we known what we were dealing with I don't think we would have tried so hard. Christian's disorder leads a child to be very low-functioning, but we didn't know that so we just kept pushing him. Now he does a lot of things he's not supposed to be able to do. We love him to pieces and couldn't be prouder if we had picked him out ourselves.

I realize that not every family would feel the same way(my own sibs, included) but I appreciated my OB respecting my decision to not know.

 

[RachelEllen]

Has anyone encounter any case of positive result for amnio test, but the baby turns up healthy and normal?

It's extremely, extremely rare. Unlike a triple screen, an amnio gives a definitive answer. If it gives the wrong answer, it's either a case of clerical error (wrong patient's results) or a case where a genetic abnormality occured late in the placental tissue and this is the tissue that got sampled. That's also very rare, but it has happened.

(One other case where errors can occur is with twins. Sometimes one twin is sampled twice.)

 

[pixiemomma]

I would agree with the others. It has a high inceidence of false positives becaus e it is only accurate at 16 weeks. My doctor said if ithe test went away tomorrow she'd be happy. My SIL also had a false postive. Best of luck to your friend.

 

[skuttle]

I wouldn't do it again because as my doctor asked after the positive results, would the results of an amnio cause you to terminate the pregancy? When I said no, he said I shouldn't do the amnio.

That's the reason I decided not to do any of those tests. Once my doctor told me that there was nothing they could do if it was positive, and I knew we wouldn't terminate the pregnancy for anything like that, I decided I would rather enjoy my pregnancy than worry about something I couldn't change.

Good luck to your friend! As everyone else has said, I have also heard that those tests have a lot of false positives.

 

[Ava83]

I have a know of two people with false positives, when it was discussed when I was pregnant with Ava, Corey and I decided not to take the test (just go with an ultrasound) the false positive rate was so high with it.

 

[LisaNJ25]

I had a false positive with my 18mo. Went and had an amnio and everything was ok. It freaked my out so much that when I was pregnant with my son I said I was not going to go for another amnio if needed.

 

[NCDisneyMom]

As someone else mentioned, this test shows a positive "possibility", not a positive "he/she has Downs", or any other syndrome. I had the positive test result with my son. My wonderful dr. called me and talked to me for 1/2 hour, going over all of our options. Dh and I decided that, Downs or not, we were already in love with our child, and the results of further testing would not change that. The risks involved with an amnio were too high for my comfort and, knowing that it didn't make a difference to dh and I, we decided to just ride out the pregnancy as it was. DS is now 6, and no trace of Down's.

With my pregnancy with my dd, I had the test done, but I had it noted that I ONLY wanted to be informed if it had a positive for Spina Bifida. Because the severity of Spina Bifida can vary, and can even be life-threatening, dh and I decided that we'd want to know about that. But that was it. Needless to say, I never got a phone call with dd's test, and to this day I have no idea what the results were.

 

[stacy347]

Another false positive here. When I had the test with my youngest, they told me there was a 60% chance that she had Down's Syndrome.

I hadn't had any false positives with the other girls so it was pretty disheartening to hear that and the doc sort of pushed for me to have the amnio done but I refused for the same reason other posters have stated ~ wouldn't make a bit of difference in my choice to have her and I knew there were risks.

She does not have Down's.

I hope everything turns out well for your friend and the baby and honestly, that test is NOT worth stressing over.

 

[junebug05]

I had this screening done with my first pregnancy, and it indicated a higher risk for the baby having Down Syndrome. My OB referred us for genetic counseling and a level 2 ultrasound. For whatever reason, they made us see the genetics counselor first which was a nightmare. I was very obviously pregnant, feeling the baby move etc..., and this woman repeatedly mentioned that "termination of the pregnancy was still an option at this point". Ummm, excuse me, but we don't even know that there is anything wrong yet!!! We then went on to have the ultrasound and amnio and determined that our baby did not in fact have Down Syndrome.

We opted out of this screening for our subsequent pregnancies. For us, the stress of those weeks was just not something we wanted to experience again.

If your friend has the option, I would suggest having the utrasound first and then seeing the genetics people if in fact there is a problem.