Owens to know as much as possible about their pregnancies as early as possible is behind a quiet revolution in prenatal screening in Canada and other developed countries.Ī new generation of simple blood tests is allowing would-be parents to learn about the sex and potential genetic anomalies of their babies in the first trimester, a stage of the pregnancy when it's relatively easy to get an abortion in Canada. Owens said, "I refused to wait until I was in my second trimester. Owens's blood and tell her as early as 10 weeks into her pregnancy if she was carrying a baby with the chromosomal anomalies that cause Down syndrome and a few other, less common, conditions. This time, her doctor offered her a new test called Harmony.įor about $800, an American lab would analyze the fetal DNA circulating in Ms. She had already told her family and friends that her one-year-old son was going to be a big brother.Ī few months after the loss, Ms. Owens, a hospital communications specialist in Pickering, Ont., recalls it now, the hardest part of the experience was discovering that her pregnancy was at risk when she was well into her second trimester. Owens and her husband decided not to find out if their lost baby was a boy or a girl.)Īs Ms. Had the child lived, further testing revealed, he or she would have had Down syndrome. Owens, then 32, underwent an amniocentesis, a diagnostic test that required inserting a long needle into her stomach to retrieve a sample of her amniotic fluid. The routine prenatal screening that Ontario offered at the time, in 2012, suggested that she had a higher-than-expected risk of carrying a baby with Down syndrome. Andrea Owens was 17 weeks and five days into her second pregnancy when her obstetrician called to say something might be wrong with the baby.
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