All parents want to give birth to a healthy baby. Most babies are normal and healthy but 2-3% of babies are born with some type of congenital defect. Hence, prenatal counseling is necessary to help you learn more about genetic disorder and ways to prevent or detect it.
Prenatal counseling help recognize those couples that have increased risk of giving birth to a baby with birth defects or genetic disorder. It will also help you understand more about the nature of these conditions, the chances of passing in onto your children, and the chances of its occurrence and recurrence.
Prenatal counseling will also help you in make informed decisions regarding various screening or testing options in your pregnancy. In some cases, prenatal analysis can be made through testing of fetal cells, amniotic membranes or amniotic fluid in order to detect any fetal abnormalities in the womb on pregnancy.
Prenatal Counseling is highly recommended for:
- Couples that have history of infertility for unknown reasons.
- Pregnancy that occurred on women 35 years and older or any woman that is interested to learn more about screening and testing options during their pregnancy.
- Those that detected fetal abnormality on their ultrasound.
- Couples that have previous child, or any other family member that has birth defect, genetic disorder, or mental retardation.
- Women who experienced unexplainable stillbirth, infant deaths, or miscarriages repeatedly.
- Women who have uncharacteristic results of pregnancy screening test.
- Couples that were identified to carry abnormal genes or chromosomes.
- Those that have increased risk for certain inherited conditions due to their ethnic background.
- Pregnant women who have been exposed to agents (teratogens) that may cause birth defects.
The advancement of medicine nowadays paved the way for more information regarding inheritance of diseases, which gives parents different choices on how to deal with pregnancy and make their child healthy and as disease free as possible. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to make the necessary precautions during your pregnancy to have a bouncing baby and also prevent future diseases to occur.
