Presently, pregnant women that are worried about their baby suffering from Down syndrome have to undergo procedures that require a needle to be implanted into the uterus. These procedures, though performed safely most of the time, can cause miscarriage in some cases. These tests are also slow, the result pointing to Down syndrome when the pregnancy is often 18 or 19 weeks along. Women need to know sooner in order to take a decision and prepare for dealing with this. Fortunately there is hope as scientists have discovered that a simple blood test could be able to point to Down syndrome.

The blood test is not a new idea, scientists struggling for a long time to separate the mother’s DNA from the fetus’ DNA. This is extremely complicated and progress is slow. But the hardest problems usually have simple answers; scientists know that the fetus’ blood is present in his mother’s blood so, theoretically, if the DNA in the blood shows a large amount of chromosome 21, the fetus may have Down syndrome.

This disease is a genetic defect, the DNA presenting an extra copy of chromosome 21. The tests conducted until now using this technique show positive results and have proven useful. Scientists estimate that a reliable Down syndrome blood test will be available in 2 or 3 years as further testing and research is required. Even so, the fact that this discovery was made can be regarded as exciting news for people worldwide. Scientists estimate that such a test will cost approximately $700 but as it will become largely available the prices will drop significantly.