Prenatal tests

Cordocentesis, also called percutaneous cord blood sampling, is a prenatal diagnostic test performed during pregnancy to analyze the baby's genetic information.

Within the prenatal diagnostic tests, chorionic biopsy and cordocentesis are the most invasive, the ones that involve the most risks and the ones that are performed last when making a diagnosis.

All pregnant women, at the first prenatal visit, undergo a blood test to determine if they are Rh positive or Rh negative and are screened for antibodies using the indirect Coombs test.

Within the entire universe of tests and analytics that women must do throughout their pregnancy, there is one that is usually ordered under certain particular cases: we are talking about the Non-Invasive Prenatal Test, a blood test that allows detecting the most frequent chromosomal abnormalities that occur during conception and / or pregnancy, without the need to undergo an invasive test such as amniocentesis.

Identifying a risky pregnancy early can mean saving the life of the baby or even the mother, since in these cases gynecologists follow the evolution of the pregnancy more closely and carry out more tests to act if necessary.

Prenatal checkups are very important for proper monitoring of the pregnancy, knowing that everything is going well, and that your baby is developing as it should. They are so essential that the WHO recommends that pregnancy monitoring visits be doubled from four to eight.

2D (two-dimensional) ultrasound is the most widespread, but in recent years we have also known 3D (three-dimensional) ultrasound, which allows us to see the volume aspect of the baby, and the so-called 4D ultrasound that adds the complement of seeing the baby moving in real time.

In the second trimester of pregnancy, between weeks 18 and 22, all pregnant women undergo a routine ultrasound called the 20 week ultrasound or "the 20 o'clock echo" (in waiting rooms and cafeterias), although their A more accurate name would be to call it a 20-week morphological ultrasound, since it performs a detailed examination of the entire morphology of the baby.