Fetal Flaw

That?s now changing, thanks to noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT). As Mara Hvistendahl explained recently in Slate, companies are developing tests that can estimate the risk of a defective pregnancy from fetal DNA in the mother?s own blood, extracted by a regular needle from her arm, like any other blood draw. That means less risk of miscarriage, less stress, less discomfort, less hassle, and lower cost. It also means earlier detection. This week, at a conference at Stanford Law School, companies working on the technology said their tests could screen for defects at 10 weeks. But informally, the expected threshold for NIPT is seven to eight weeks, and possibly five.

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