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Baby scan dangerously inaccurate
A routine screening test for pregnant women is inaccurate and results in the termination of three healthy babies for every Down syndrome child that goes to term, according to a prominent radiologist.
The ultrasound screening test at 12 weeks is now considered a routine part of pregnancy but in a controversial interview with the Sunday program, Dr Hylton Meire says a Nuchal Translucency has a false positive rate of 95 percent.
As a result, healthy babies are put at risk of miscarriage from more invasive tests to confirm or deny the original suspicion.
"95 percent of positive tests don’t have a chromosomally abnormal baby," he said.
"Patients probably aren’t aware of the fact they have a significant risk of losing a normal baby as a result of further tests.”
Dr Meire’s claims are strongly opposed by Dr Andrew McLennan, a consultant obstetrician who introduced the Nuchal tests to Australia in 1998, but Sunday has spoken to several women who have lost healthy babies apparently as a result of the test.
At Tracey Young’s 12 week ultrasound screening test, she was told she had a one in 100 chance of having a baby with a chromosomal abnormality 'not compatible with life'.
Doctors recommended an amniocentesis, a procedure that involves a needle taking amniotic fluid from the pregnancy to confirm the diagnosis.
There was a risk of miscarriage, but Tracey just wanted to make sure the baby was ok.
"I did it for reassurance," she said.
The result came back clear; the little boy was chromosomally perfect … but two weeks later Tracey lost the baby.
"All the amniotic fluid had leaked out and he died inutero," she said.
Tracey is not alone: Deborah Thomas, editor of Women’s Weekly, was 42 when she first fell pregnant and opted for a chorionic villus sampling (CVS) test where a sample of placenta is harvested via needle from the pregnancy.
She painfully recounts how her amniotic sac developed a leak as a result and her baby boy was lost at 23 weeks.
Dr Meire claims that the rate of false negatives for the Nuchal Translucency test is also high, with some 40 percent of Down syndrome babies not picked up by the test.
At 25, Carrie Daniels was a young mum and not considered to be at high risk.
Her NT screening test results concluded her baby had a less that one in 2000 chance of a chromosomal abnormality.
Six months later, Harrison Daniels was born with Down syndrome.
In another case 12 weeks into Harrison Catesby’s embryonic life, his parents were given the shocking news that he had a 1 in 8 chance of Down syndrome.
The original test was wrong: Harrison was born perfectly normal, but not before his parents opted for a CVS test without thinking of the miscarriage rate.
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