As a preemie mom I sometimes wonder if there’s something I could have done to prolong my pregnancy past 28 weeks. I had no risk factors and was in excellent health. The doctor said that my placenta wasn’t allowing him to be nourished and that sometimes those things just happen. I underwent numerous ultrasounds to ensure my son was okay up until the day he was born. While I was able to access this technology, what about moms who can’t?
Ultrasound gives less reliable information as a pregnancy advances, and also requires expensive equipment and trained technicians, mostly unavailable in developing countries.
What if there was a way to know from the beginning what to expect? Researchers have developed a blood test that predicts with 80% accuracy which babies will be born before their due dates. The new blood test will be simple and cheap enough to use in low-resource settings. Mira Moufarrej, a doctoral student in the bioengineering program at Stanford University, describes the tests and its benefits:
“So we developed two blood tests. The first one predicts gestational age similar to ultrasound, so when a baby will be due, but it does it in the second and the third trimester as opposed to the first. So, for women who live far away from the clinic or women who don’t know they’re pregnant until later in life, this serves as a complement and a substitute whereas in the past there was no substitute to ultrasound.” The test had so far shown 80 percent accuracy. Because a blood test is cheap and easy to use, it has the potential to complement ultrasound and expand access to good prenatal care.
While scientists need to validate the new tests further before they can be made available for widespread use, this is excellent news for women planning to get pregnant in the future. Click the link above for more information or follow this link for the full story: https://www.wearegreenbay.com/healthwatch/healthwatch-predicting-preemies-building-healthier-babies/.
