A new generation of prenatal screening tests has exploded onto the market in the past three years. The unregulated screens claim to detect with near-perfect accuracy the risk a fetus may have a chromosomal abnormality, such as Down syndrome.
Hundreds of thousands of women in early pregnancy have taken these tests. But a three-month investigation by NECIR journalist Beth Daley has found that companies selling the most popular of these screens don’t make clear enough to patients and doctors that their high-risk test results are not reliable enough to to make a diagnosis. Now some experts worry that the tests may be prompting unnecessary abortions.
What do you need to know about prenatal screenings? What questions should you ask your doctor?
Join our panel of experts to answer your questions about this complicated topic:
- Beth Daley is an investigative reporter and the director of partnerships at NECIR.
- Kecia Gaither, M.D., is director of perinatal outreach at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, as well as a consulting physician for WebMD.
- Athena Cherry, Ph.D., is a professor of pathology and of pediatrics at the Stanford University Medical Center and the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital
- KJ Dell'Antonia writes about family for the New York Times' Motherlode blog.
You can leave a question now and join us live on Monday, Dec. 15 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST.