The birth of every new life is to be celebrated! Expecting parents often advised by doctors from the department of gynecology and obstetrics to consider noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPT). Parents often have many questions with regard to the potential benefits of prenatal screening and making an informed choice to better understand the health status of the mother and baby. To assist in this process, BGI, one of the world’s leading providers of NIPTs, interview our in-house experts to answer these recurring questions.
Q1 What is NIPT? Why is NIPT considered a noninvasive test?
NIPT, also known as noninvasive prenatal screening (NIPS), is a screening test for evaluating the risk that the fetus will be born with certain genetic abnormalities or chromosomal disorders, such as Down syndrome (trisomy 21), Patau syndrome (trisomy 13), and Edwards syndrome (trisomy 18).
This testing analyzes small fragments of DNA that are circulating in a pregnant woman’s blood, which was called cell-free DNA (cfDNA). NIPT is considered noninvasive because it only requires drawing blood from the pregnant woman to test whether a fetus has a genetic condition and does not pose any risk to th