Genetic counselling will be key to help parents navigate changes in prenatal testing | Jonathan Roberts

Parents need time and empathy in deciding how to negotiate the ethical issues raised by advances in gene technologyAs a genetic counsellor I try to help people make sense of genetics, inheritance and their family history. One important area is having conversations with parents who have an increased risk of having a child born with an inherited condition or disability.While prenatal genetic testing has been available for many years, until recently this was only possible using invasive procedures, which carried small risk of miscarriage. Now a new technology – non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) – allows parents to have genetic testing with no miscarriage risk by testing fetal DNA that is circulating in the mother’s blood.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Genetics Children's health Biology Science UK news Society Source Type: news