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October 6, 2005
Safer test for unborn babies
This is some exciting stuff for the future stuff. As we all knew it was discovered that you could detect if a woman was having a boy or not based off a blood test and checking for male DNA in the mother's blood. No male DNA, no boy. Now in Hong Kong we have researchers that have discovered a way to detect DNA that doesn't belong to the mother at all in her blood. Allow them to do genetic tests on the baby in the mother's womb without the dangerous amniocentesis procedure being done. For those of you that are unfamiliar with amniocentesis, imagine stabbing a woman's pregnant belly with a long syringe guided only by ultrasound images of the baby in her to collect a sample of amniotic fluid. I personally rank it right up there with the most horrifying procedures that can be done to a woman. For those of you that don't know this can kill the baby about 1 percent to half a percent of the time depending on what country you live in. So unless your doctor has some serious evidence of why it needs to be done always say no. Public service message aside the discovery they made in Hong Kong skips this entire procedure using a simple blood test to find the baby's DNA and do the relevant tests without endangering the child at all. I found the concerns on the subject very interesting, but that's an entirely different debate for another day.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at October 6, 2005 3:31 PM
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