Claim: Baby illness can be scanned in mother's blood: study.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Birth defect
text: information, enzyme replacement therapy and organ transplants. Different countries support the screening for a number of metabolic disorders (inborn errors of metabolism (IEM)), and genetic disorders including cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Tandem mass spectroscopy can also be used for IEM, and investigation of sudden infant death, and shaken baby syndrome. Screening can also be carried out prenatally and can include obstetric ultrasonography to give scans such as the nuchal scan. 3D ultrasound scans can give detailed information of structural anomalies. Congenital anomalies resulted in about 632,000 deaths per year in 2013 down from 751,000 in 1990. The types

title: Cell-free fetal DNA
text: the fetus. Incompatibility of fetal and maternal RhD antigens is the main cause of Hemolytic disease of the newborn. Approximately 15 percent of Caucasian women, 3 to 5 percent of black Africa women and less than 3 percent of Asian women are RhD negative. Accurate prenatal diagnosis is important because the disease can be fatal to the newborn and because treatment including intramuscular immunoglobulin (Anti-D) or intravenous immunoglobulin can be administered to mothers at risk. PCR to detect RHD (gene) gene exons 5 and 7 from cffDNA obtained from maternal plasma between 9 and 13 weeks gestation gives a high

title: Rh disease
text: findings about a family who had a stillborn baby who died of hemolytic disease of the newborn. The mother was aged 25 and it was her second pregnancy and she suffered blood loss at the delivery. Both parents were blood group O and the husband's blood was used to give the mother a blood transfusion, but the mother suffered a severe transfusion reaction. They investigated this transfusion reaction. Since the mother and the father were both blood group O, they concluded that there must be a previously undiscovered blood group antigen that was present on the husband's RBCs (red blood

title: Blood type
text: with a blood type which is different from their own. In those cases, the mother can make IgG blood group antibodies. This can happen if some of the fetus' blood cells pass into the mother's blood circulation (e.g. a small fetomaternal hemorrhage at the time of childbirth or obstetric intervention), or sometimes after a therapeutic blood transfusion. This can cause Rh disease or other forms of hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN) in the current pregnancy and/or subsequent pregnancies. Sometimes this is lethal for the fetus; in these cases it is called hydrops fetalis. If a pregnant woman is known

title: Sickle cell disease
text: urinary tract infection, and chest X-ray to look for occult pneumonia should be routinely performed. People who are known carriers of the disease often undergo genetic counseling before they have a child. A test to see if an unborn child has the disease takes either a blood sample from the fetus or a sample of amniotic fluid. Since taking a blood sample from a fetus has greater risks, the latter test is usually used. Neonatal screening provides not only a method of early detection for individuals with sickle cell disease, but also allows for identification of the groups of people

title: Hemolytic disease of the newborn (anti-Rhc)
text: no longer used due to risk of worsening the maternal antibody response. Once antigen status has been determined, assessment may be done with MCA scans. MCA scans Middle cerebral artery - peak systolic velocity is changing the way sensitized pregnancies are managed. This test is done noninvasively with ultrasound. By measuring the peak velocity of blood flow in the middle cerebral artery, a MoM (multiple of the median) score can be calculated. MoM of 1.5 or greater indicates severe anemia and should be treated with IUT. There are several intervention options available in early, mid and late pregnancies. In some

title: Prenatal testing
text: (Down syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edward syndrome), and trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) was possible. This method of noninvasive diagnosis is now starting to be heavily used and researched further. Fetal components in samples from maternal blood plasma can be analyzed by genome-wide techniques not only by total DNA, but also by methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (with tiling array), microRNA (such as with Megaplex) and total RNA (RNA-sequencing). Research was conducted to determine how women felt about noninvasive diagnosis of fetal aneuploid using maternal blood. This study was conducted using surveys. It was reported that eighty-two percent of pregnant women and seventy-nine percent

title: Newborn screening
text: sickle cell disease, and blood transfusions are used for patients identified with severe thalassemia. Most jurisdictions did not start screening for any of the organic acidemias before tandem mass spectrometry significantly expanded the list of disorders detectable by newborn screening. Quebec has run a voluntary second-tier screening program since 1971 using urine samples collected at three weeks of age to screen for an expanded list of organic acidemias using a thin layer chromatography method. Newborn screening using tandem mass spectrometry can detect several organic acidemias, including propionic acidemia, methylmalonic acidemia and isovaleric acidemia. Cystic fibrosis (CF) was first added to

title: R. Palmer Beasley
text: from mothers to babies, since that's the commonest way in nature that blood is shared between people. With that hypothesis I went to Taiwan and, with the Abbott Laboratories test, began screening and detecting carrier pregnant women in the obstetric clinics at the hospitals in Taipei. After some months of doing this, we had determined that almost 20% of the mothers in Taiwan were hepatitis B carriers, which is a phenomenally high rate." That figure contrasts sharply to a rate of less than 1% in the U.S. "About 40% of the babies of those carrier-mothers became infected," said Beasley. Beasley

title: Cell-free fetal DNA
text: cffDNA from the plasma of 3 of 25 women with female fetuses contained the Y chromosome-specific signal. The sensitivity of nested PCR in this experiment was 96 percent. The specificity was 88 percent. Microfluidic devices allow the quantification of cffDNA segments in maternal plasma with accuracy beyond that of real-time PCR. Point mutations, loss of heterozygosity and aneuploidy can be detected in a single PCR step. Digital PCR can differentiate between maternal blood plasma and fetal DNA in a multiplex fashion. High throughput shotgun sequencing using tools such as Solexa or Illumina, yields approximately 5 million sequence tags per sample

title: Hemolytic disease of the newborn (anti-RhE)
text: checked around 28 weeks to see if she has developed anti-c as well. Testing for HDN involves blood work from both mother and father, and may also include assessment with amniocentesis and Middle Cerebral Artery scans. Blood testing for the mother is called an Indirect Coombs Test (ICT) or an Indirect Agglutination Test (IAT). This test tells whether there are antibodies in the maternal plasma. If positive, the antibody is identified and given a titer. Critical titers are associated with significant risk of fetal anemia and hydrops. Titers of 1:8 or higher is considered critical for Kell. Titers of 1:16

title: Neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia
text: be performed on the maternal and paternal blood to determine the exact nature of the incompatibility. Neonatal platelet counts on laboratory testing are typically under 20,000 μL. Higher counts may suggest a different diagnosis, such as maternal immune thrombocytopenic purpura. Even in mildly affected babies it is important to fully investigate and diagnose the baby because the results can be critical for effective management of any future pregnancies. Antenatal management only occurs if a mother has had a previously affected baby or a family member has had an affected baby. Currently, there is no international consensus on the optimal antenatal

title: Diana W. Bianchi
text: to the site of an injury in the mother, dividing and changing into the cells needed to fix the problem. This has led to a field of study known as fetal cell microchimerism. Bianchi also has worked extensively on noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPS) using DNA sequencing of fetal and placental DNA fragments in the blood of pregnant women. Dr. Bianchi’s research is part of what has helped expand the use of NIPS in the general obstetrical population.The sequencing technology employed in cfDNA testing has a number of potential uses in many areas of health care, Dr. Messerlian says, including cancer,

title: Duchenne muscular dystrophy
text: determination of the fetal sex is important; while males are sometimes affected by this X-linked disease, female DMD is extremely rare. This can be achieved by ultrasound scan at 16 weeks or more recently by free fetal DNA testing. Chorion villus sampling (CVS) can be done at 11–14 weeks, and has a 1% risk of miscarriage. Amniocentesis can be done after 15 weeks, and has a 0.5% risk of miscarriage. Fetal blood sampling can be done around 18 weeks. Another option in the case of unclear genetic test results is fetal muscle biopsy. No cure for DMD is known, and

title: Hemolytic disease of the newborn (anti-Kell)
text: reached, care is based on MCA scans. If antibodies are low and have a sudden jump later in pregnancy, an MCA scan is warranted. If the titer undergoes a 4 fold increase, it should be considered significant regardless of if the critical value has been reached. It should be noted that maternal titers are not useful in predicting fetal anemia after the first affected gestation and should not be used for the basis of care. Titers are tested monthly until 24 weeks, after which they are done every 2 weeks. In only 2 situations are patients not monitored identically to

title: Hemolytic disease of the newborn (anti-RhE)
text: or higher are considered critical for all other antibodies. After critical titer is reached, care is based on MCA scans. If antibodies are low and have a sudden jump later in pregnancy, an MCA scan is warranted. If the titer undergoes a 4 fold increase, it should be considered significant regardless of if the critical value has been reached. It should be noted that maternal titers are not useful in predicting fetal anemia after the first affected gestation and should not be used for the basis of care. Titers are tested monthly until 24 weeks, after which they are done

title: Rh disease
text: Kleihauer–Betke test (which shows if the mother’s and unborn baby’s blood has mixed). Anti-RhD immunoglobulin is also given to non-sensitized rhesus negative women immediately (within 72 hours—the sooner the better) after potentially sensitizing events that occur earlier in pregnancy. The discovery of cell-free DNA in the maternal plasma has allowed for the non-invasive determination of the fetal RHD genotype. In May 2017, the Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology of Canada is now recommending that the optimal management of the D-negative pregnant woman is based on the prediction of the fetal D-blood group by cell-free DNA in maternal plasma with targeted

title: Metascreen
text: appear asymptomatic in the first few days or even weeks of life, early detection and treatment is key in preventing irreversible lifelong complications, such as physical disability or mental retardation. Unlike the conventional dried blood spot test for newborn screening that involves a painful heel prick, Metascreen uses urine specimen, collected without harm or discomfort to the newborn, to detect as many as 110 metabolic disorders. The urine specimen is collected on a filter paper, which is then air-dried and sent to the laboratory for analysis using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry instrument ("GC-MS"). GC-MS is a FDA approved method for

title: Baby Gender Mentor
text: can be used for medical diagnoses. For instance, scientists have shown that it is possible to use fetal DNA from a woman's blood to screen the fetus for genetic defects such as Down syndrome. In a validation study sponsored by the National Institute for Child Health and Development, 5 different labs used fetal cells from maternal blood to search for evidence of Down syndrome in 2,744 pregnancies. On average, the labs correctly spotted Down syndrome babies 74% of the time. In at least one case, Chang Wang, the president of Acu-Gen, has phoned a pregnant woman one month after giving

title: Iron-deficiency anemia
text: with an iron supplement, as this can lead to hemochromatosis. A hemoglobin electrophoresis provides useful evidence for distinguishing these two conditions, along with iron studies. It is unclear if screening pregnant women for iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy improves outcomes in the United States. The same holds true for screening children who are 6 to 24 months old. Even so, screening is a Level B recommendation suggested by the US Preventative Services Task Force in pregnant women without symptoms and in infants considered high risk. Screening is done with either a hemoglobin or hematocrit lab test. Treatment should take into account