Maternal blood sampling for fetal blood cells
This is a new technique that makes use of the phenomenon of fetal blood cells gaining access to maternal circulation through the
placental villi. Ordinarily, only a very small number of fetal cells enter the maternal circulation in this fashion (not enough to produce a positive Kleihauer-Betke test for fetal-maternal hemorrhage). The fetal cells can be sorted out and analyzed by a variety of techniques to look for particular
DNA sequences, but without the risks that these latter two invasive procedures inherently have. Fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) is one technique that can be applied to identify particular
chromosomes of the fetal cells recovered from maternal blood and diagnose aneuploid conditions such as the
trisomies and
monosomy X. The problem with this technique is that it is difficult to get many fetal
blood cells. There may not be enough to reliably determine anomalies of the fetal
karyotype or assay for other abnormalities.
Please check out
Prenatal Diagnosis Overview
Ultrasound in PN Diagnosis
Amniocentesis
Chorionic Villus Sampling