Positive Quad Screen

I always opted not to have the quad screen because so many of my friends had false positives and worried the rest of the pregnancy. At least two of my three children had short femur measurements. I remember the tech being very concerned about it. Luckily, I was fairly oblivious. The can also look for things like skin folds on the neck, etc. Try to focus on the joy in your pregnancy because there is nothing that you can do to change the outcome. Likely, the "red flags" will not turn out to be anything. Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy and enjoy your prescious child.

My cousin recently delivered a delightful baby with Downs. The benefit to her of finding out during her preg, was the ability to get a support group in place. She is involved with a fabulous group of families with Downs children that have been able to give her realistic ideas of what life will be like and can provide a ton of answers and support. Everyone involved is head-over-heals in love with this little girl.

You are young and chances are you have a false positive test too. With my second, I had a positive Quad screen and was just terribly upset. I had to wait two weeks before having my Level II done. After about a week, I decided that it didn't matter. This was my baby and that God was not going to give me anything that I couldn't handle. Well, I now have a 13 month old beautiful and healthy baby girl. So, just leave it in God's hands and pray that he will give you the strength to accept the baby he gives you regardless of the outcome. Have faith. God Bless and Good Luck.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but PLEASE try not to worry. Talk to hubby and decide what you will do if your baby has Downs. Once your decision is made it will be a little bit easier.

This happened to us with our third child and we talked about it. We knew that even though it would be hard, we would keep the baby, so regardless of the result, our baby would stay ours. It doesn't make the waiting any better, but it really helped to talk it out, because we were both wondering what the other would want to do, but were afraid of hearing the answer. Once we talked about it, we realized neither of us would ever get rid of our child, no matter what, and it made our relationship stronger.

Our baby was fine and in my opinion, they scared us for no reason whatsoever. The more we learned about it, our ultrasound tech could have told us if there were more signs besides the blood test and she hadn't seen any of them, nor would they develop if they weren't there already.

Honestly if we had it to do over again, we probably wouldn't even have the test again and I know I wouldn't do amnio. Our decision was to keep our baby no matter what, and having a risky, painful amnio wouldn't change it, nor it would it make anything easier when the baby did come. If anything, it would have crushed the remaining joy we had during our pregnancy.

It's a personal decision,but remember their tests are wrong A LOT. Talk it over with hubby and once you are a united front, it will help.

Good luck. My prayers are with you...it's a very scary time, but usually ends with good news. Keep us informed!!!

These tests as I am sure you already know can often produce false positives. I chose not to have those tests done for that very reason and didn't want to get myself worked up over nothing. I will pray that everything is ok with you and your baby and just remember all things happen for a reason.

Dear E.,
Your best hope is prayer. Our Father knows best. We will be in prayer for you. Trust God(THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD OF ABRAHAM ISAAC AND JACOB}. Put all your cares upon Him. Trust Him for the results. I have a friend who had a down sydrome baby 6 years ago and she had many things to conquer but this child has been an unbelievable joy and even training for her other children. But, we can believe for a normal birth. Just trust your Father. Shalom, L.

Hey E.,

I would not worry too much. Most of the time those test give a false postive! Having them done causes so much stress and more times than not, for no reason! I opted to not have them done on our babies. Our doctor explained that there are more chances of false positives and so we just didn't do it. We had two beautiful healty baby boys and I am so glad that we did not endure all of that.

God has a plan and designed us to be perfect! So just thank Him for that everyday and pray for your baby!

:)
T.

I know how stressed you are feeling. Im 42 and preg w/ my 2nd after 2 miscarriages. My husband and I choose not to have any of the tests done as we would not be able to abort even if they found something. When I was preg w/ my first at 36 my husband, boyfriend at the time, was the first to say no to the amnio as he said it had a high rate of miscarrage.

I would suggest sitting down w/ your husband and having a real heart to heart about what you can and cannot do if you proceed onto an amnio.

Whatever the decision I wish you the best and have to agree w/ the other ladies. That you have to hope and pray that God will only give you what he knows you can handle.

I am praying for you and your family that your baby will not have this. However, I am sure you are trying to prepare yourself and if it is so, I pray you get all the information and support you and your family needs. Children are all blessings and perfect, simply because they just are. Regardless of the result, this child was meant to be.

Hi E.,

I experienced this exact same thing with my son who is now 11 months. I had a 1:40 chance of downs and ended up getting an amnio. That 2 week waiting period was honestly the worst two weeks of my life. I made myself sick with worry and ended up in the hospital from dehydration. I just knew that I was going to end up with a baby who had downs. I was only 22 when I got pregnant so I was really shocked when they told me this. My husband and family were very supportive but I was still so depressed thinking about it. The amnio turned out to be fine and honestly made me appreciate having a healthy baby and pregnancy 100x's more since I went through that. You will be fine, and everything will turn out ok. Please let us know when you find out the good news that your baby is healthy. If you need to talk, please let me know. Going through this is extremely hard, and talking to someone who went through it would have helped me at the time.

Just be prayerful. I had a 1:50 chance. I had major complications with my pregnancy and had to have a cerclage. Prayerful and thankful to God my little boy is 3 and has no signs of down. I did not do the amino because I was afraid of the needle and I had to ponder if he did have downs what would I do. You are very brave and strong, just know that God is in control.

First, keep in mind that many women who were told their babies had horrible birth defects, retardation, etc, gave birth to perfectly normal babies. The tests aren't always accurate.
Second, a Downs baby can be a delight, just as other babies can. There is also lots of help and intervention. My friend's 7-yr-old with Downs is loving, kind, and joyful. She can learn and reads fairly well.
There are tons of resources available to help you and your family. Check out the links below to get started. The most important thing is to love your child no matter what. (After all, if you had a perfect child who several years later suffered a brain injury, you'd still love him, right?)

http://www.parentadvocatesdownsyndrome.com/
http://www.sujeet.com/alabama.html

Stay positive. With those odds, you have a 79 out of 80 chance that things will be fine.

I have not had this problem but I was talking to a guy whose wife was in a similar situation. She was diagnosed at about 8 weeks with a Trisomy 18 baby (Down's Syndrome baby's are Trisomy 21). She refused amino but they confirmed it was Trisomy 18 using placenta tissue. Anyway the entire preganancy they were prepared to give birth to a baby that would only live a short time or perhaps die in utero. They also refused to abort. They decided to let the baby live as long as it could. At the 8 month an ultrasound revealed that the baby was perfectly healthy.
I just read a great story about another woman entitled Georgianna's Choice. Follow this link at Clevalandmagazine.com.

http://www.clevelandmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=E73AB...

When I was pregnant, the dr's told me that due to the neucal translucency shown on the ultrasound (or something like that) there was a high probability my child had downs. (this was VERY early on in my pregnancy and had to do with the fluid at the base of the skull/back of the neck) I went to a specialist who measured the length of all the bones and said everything looked normal. Because I still had doubts, I spoke to my doc about having amnio and we ultimately decided not to do it. (was going to be hard to find a doc to do it since the risks associated with the procedure were high compared to the actual chance the baby had downs - this doc, the 3rd one I went to, and the specialist said the first tests were done too early in my pregnancy) Daughter arrived perfectly healthy with all the normal parts!

Anyway, basically, I haven't had the same testing you've had, and wasn't given probability ratios, but I have been in that uncertain period. It's a scary place to be and I hope you get the results you're looking for! My thoughts are with you!

I had a positive quad screen with my second child. I was worried to death! I went to get a level 2 ultrasound and they found a small spot on his heart, they said that it was a red flag but could also appear in a normal fetus too. I chose not to get an amnio and was worried sick my entire pregnancy. When he was born the docter said he did not see any signs of downs but afterI brought him home I was constantly looking for anything on him that looked like Downs. I decided to go have a blood test done on him to be for sure and guess what it was NEGATIVE!! All that worrying and stress for nothing. So don't worry yourself to much because it could be false. Even if it happens to be positive than you will still have the most precious and loving child in your arms. God will not give you anything you can not handle. I wish you well.

don't get your hopes up yet, my sister had that happen to her just this year, she had to go to a high risk doc until she was 6 mos. they were basing everthing and still were saying it was Downs, even measuring the head and said it was to small became a factor. The next month or two the baby hit a growth spurt and they did an amneo and they said she still had a 'chance' of her being Downs. In April my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and she is not Downs. After all the devistation during her pregnancy and the doctors 'results' they were still wrong, so keep your head up.
Best of Luck. K.

Well, I understand a little bit, but my oldest daughter was born at 34 weeks and with a cleft palate. We did not know about it intill she was born. The doctors were more worried about her organs developing because I had toxema so bad that my life was at risk. She is now 10 years-old and very healthy. We had challenges, but everything worked out. Relax, IF your baby does have downs you can overcome this. Enjoy your baby and you will have so much fun with him/her. I will be praying for you and the test results.

E.,
First of all, none of the tests for Down syndrome are very accurate and can be skewed either way except for the amnio. The amnio is definitive genetic testing. So don't panic yet. It may turn out fine.

There are also ultrasound measurements that can be taken for hard and soft markers for Down syndrome (my son had several soft markers so we did the amnio just so we didn't have to wonder for months).

It was a tough 10 days waiting for the amnio results and the diagnosis of Down syndrome scared me terribly, but we had tried for 2 years to have a child and nothing would have kept us from having him.

I want you to know that if you get the diagnosis of Down syndrome, you can contact me directly at ____@____.com. I have an absolutely amazing son with Down syndrome who has taught me soo very much. I love him with all my heart and soul and wouldn't have it any other way.

Kevin is now 7 years old, he can read on a first grade level, he knew his alphabet from the time he was 2, knew the sounds of the letters from about 2 1/2 to 3, his colors, shapes, numbers. All the things other kids did.

He has difficulty running and can't really jump and has a hard time righting. He did have health problems but he's much better now.

I'm not going to tell you it's not hard, but it's not easy raising any child and life doesn't give us guarantees for typical children either.

I wanted to give you a mother's perspective because if you get the diagnosis, your doctors will probably assume you will abort (90% of people taking an amnio and getting a diagnosis of D.s. abort). But most of the time, there's not a balanced picture and they dont' give you info until you decide to keep the child.

I do understand the fear, I was absolutely terrified when I found out. I didn't know if I knew how to be a mother to a child with a disability. I'm not judging either, but just wanting to give you the other side of the coin if you will.

If you want to know more, I can send you resources and info, photos, other mom connections... whatever. Just email me.

Don't worry! The worst case scenario could, in fact, be the best thing that ever happened to you. Downs kids are loving and fun and generally a blessing. My friend who has an adult son with Downs says that if God doesn't give you one naturally, you should go out and hunt one up -- they are such a joy. Also, good nutrition early on can have a huge impact on their development. If you get a positive result, let me know and I will be happy to put you in contact with other mothers with Downs kids.
S. B.

I too had a positive result to this test and had to have the level II ultrasound we opted not to do the amnio but we now have a healthy beautiful 10 mo old daughter. The doctors sometimes forget to tell you that it could just be a false positive. Don't get yourself worked up about it just take it one day at a time.