Having questions about your pregnancy is normal. Whether you’re a first-time parent or carrying your third baby, it’s natural to feel anxious and full of anticipation about so many unknowns ahead — “Will baby look like me or my partner? Is sleep only a suggestion at this point on? How will the new baby fit into our family?” Though some of your questions will be hard to forecast, the good news is that there are proactive steps you can take to prepare yourself for what’s coming. Whether you’re curious about the sex of your unborn baby or want to understand their risk for a genetic disease, genetic screening may be the perfect solution to get ahead of the game.
Enter Myriad Genetics. They offer straightforward, non-invasive prenatal screens to learn a variety of insights about your baby, including the predicted sex and the risk of chromosomal and gene mutations that may cause physical and cognitive disabilities.
“Is Genetic Screening Right for Me?”
Genes are the building blocks of the body and are unique to you, your partner, and your future children. Just like an ultrasound will reveal important information about your baby’s health, genetic screening reveals important insights that can’t be seen from the outside before and during pregnancy – like an ultrasound of your DNA.
In other words, genetic screening is helpful for any expecting parents because genetic screening gives you unique results about your family. Several different types of screens are offered before and during pregnancy. These include:
- Carrier screens - Determines baby’s risk of having specific inherited conditions passed down from the parents
- Cell-free DNA screens - Determines baby’s risk of having specific chromosome conditions
- Gender reveal tests – now accurate at only 6 weeks!
If you’re still debating whether to get a prenatal screening done, it’s still a good idea to empower yourself with the knowledge of your options. Early insights into your baby’s development can help you plan with confidence, as well as ease some of those intrusive thoughts that undoubtedly shake first, second, third, and even fourth-time parents. These insights can also help parents prepare, both financially and emotionally, for the months and years ahead.
And, even if you’re unaware of inherited genetic conditions, any baby can have a chromosome change or genetic condition. Many of us are carriers of a hereditary condition and don’t know it.
9 in 10 pregnant women decided they did want a prenatal screening once they’ve been educated on how it works.¹
Ahead are some more benefits of genetic screenings and how they work.
Get Early Insights About Your Baby’s Health
Myriad Genetics’ Prequel Prenatal Screen provides insight into your baby’s development as early as week 10 of pregnancy, and can identify whether your baby may have an increased risk for a chromosomal condition like Down, Edwards, or Patau syndrome. The Prequel Prenatal Screen can also screen for the expected sex of your baby, delivering 99.9% accurate results to all patients, regardless of body mass index (BMI).² That’s the lowest failure rate in the industry of just 0.1%.²
Getting A Screening Is More Convenient Than You Might Think
Myriad is a great option for new and repeat parents because all blood tests can be performed as part of an expectant parent’s scheduled OB-GYN visit. So, if you’re tired of the many doctor’s appointments and follow up tests, you don’t have to make a special trip to the doctor or find a new provider to administer this screening. After speaking with your doctor and ordering a test, you’ll have a blood sample drawn from your arm during an appointment, which will be analyzed at a Myriad lab. Within 7-10 days, you’ll have results personalized to you based on your age, and how far you are in your pregnancy.
The Test Results Are Easy To Understand
Many parents find prenatal screening reassuring. Most of the time, parents receive low-risk results, but if the screen shows a possible risk, it provides you with the time to look into additional testing, connect with specialists, and address your baby’s needs from the start.
To help you understand your results, Myriad connects you with a board-certified genetic counselor that can help you interpret your test results and provide educational information and guidance on next steps. These can include speaking with a specialist, seeking out a specialized facility for delivery, undergoing further diagnostic testing and getting access to a support group.
The Tests Are Affordable
The great thing that Myriad Genetics keeps in mind is providing access for patients. Myriad tests are reliable and affordable through extensive coverage with most insurance plans and financial assistance programs.
Get Screened For Inherited Conditions Before You Get Pregnant
If you’re just now starting to think about having kids or getting pregnant, Myriad’s Foresight Carrier Screen can help identify couples who are at risk of passing serious inherited conditions down to their children, like cystic fibrosis. Foresight offers the highest published at-risk couple detection rate of 1 in 22 couples for being at risk for pregnancies with serious, prevalent, or clinically-actionable inherited conditions.³ The test screens for diseases that matter most to parents, with a carefully selected panel of 272 genes prioritized for clinical significance, and their detection rate for the vast majority of genes on their panel is over 99% across ethnicities.⁴
Whether your pregnancy is planned or unplanned, it’s important to understand your baby’s health, and how it may impact you once it's born. Empower yourself and your future baby with genetic screening.
To learn more about how genetic screening can help you learn more about the health of your baby and pregnancy as you grow your family by visiting prenatalscreening.com.
References
- 2023 Myriad Genetics Health Survey
- Hancock S, Ben-Shachar R, Adusei C, et al. Clinical experience across the fetal-fraction spectrum of a non-invasive prenatal screening approach with low test-failure rate. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol. 2020;56(3):422-430. doi:10.1002/uog.21904
- Hogan GJ, Vysotskaia VS, Beauchamp KA, et al. Validation of an Expanded Carrier Screen that Optimizes Sensitivity via Full-Exon Sequencing and Panel-wide Copy Number Variant Identification. Clin Chem. 2018;64(7):1063-1073. doi:10.1373/clinchem.2018.286823
- Myriad Genetics Internal data
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