Everyone, Dr. Boyd here. Welcome back to parently. Today we're talking about an interesting subject called the quad marker test. This is a blood test. It's obtained in your doctor's office between your 15th and 22nd. Week of medical questions arise of who needs to take this test?

When does this test need to be taken? And am I a candidate based on my previous history? So again, as mentioned, this is this test is taken between your 15th and 22nd week. It's a simple blood test. Now, we try to stratify you into whether you're at high risk for needing this blood test or low risk for obtaining this blood test. A COC american college of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends that all women that are pregnant be offered this test that you as a patient can decline this test.

If you're low risk, no who's high risk patients that are Above 35 years of age, should be considered in a high risk group. Number two women that have had a history of a previous baby with chromosome problems should be considered in this group to be high risk. The third risk, third group would be a family history of genetic abnormalities. And then the fourth group are women that have Type One Diabetes diagnosed before your pregnancy. Now obviously, if you're in that high risk group, your healthcare provider is going to highly encourage you to have this blood test if you decide this blood test is for you. What exactly is it looking for?

Well, the first thing is looking for is does your baby have a problem with the brain and spinal cord. This is called Open neural tube defects and opened up neural tube defects cannot always be seen on ultrasound. If you get the blood test called the quad marker, you have about an 85% chance of detecting This abnormality in your baby. The second group that we're looking at is babies that have genetic abnormalities. three groups, specifically, as your baby have Down syndrome, which is called trisomy 21. Does your baby have trisomy 13 or 18.

If you have this blood test, there's an 85% correlation that your baby would have one of these trisomy, if you get a call from your healthcare provider that your blood test came back abnormal understand, this is simple screening test. And if your blood test was abnormal, you will be referred to a maternal fetal medicine specialists called a perinatologist. And he will perform what's called a level three or level four ultrasound on your baby and also possibly perform a set amniocentesis on you to determine if your baby has a neural tube defect, or a trisomy. So it's important to understand that this is a simple screening test. It is not bad agnostic. And it's important to understand that if you get this call that you try your best not to become anxious.

Interesting statistics, if you look at all babies that have abnormal screening tests, let's assume you have 1000 women that have this blood test drawn 50 out of the 1000 have abnormal screening tests. And of that 50, only one or two of the 50 had neural tube defects, and only one or two of the 50 have abnormal chromosomes. So it's a very, very small number if you get an abnormal blood test, so please try to keep your anxiety to a minimum if you were to get that call. I hope this was helpful today. Have a great day.