Carrier screening
A test about you and your partner, not about the baby.
Carrier screening tests whether you carry a gene change for a recessive condition. Being a carrier does not affect your health. It matters only if your partner carries a change in the same gene, in which case each pregnancy has a 1 in 4 chance of being affected.
ACOG guidance states that information about carrier screening should be provided to every pregnant woman, that it is ideally done before pregnancy, and that a patient may decline any or all screening. Ethnicity-based, panethnic and expanded panels are all described as acceptable strategies.
Best done before pregnancyThe results are most useful when there is time to test a partner and consider options. If you are planning a pregnancy, this is the one test worth doing early rather than during.
Where this comes from:
154. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Genetics. Carrier screening for genetic conditions. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 691. Obstet Gynecol. 2017;129(3):e41-e55.
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More from Screening and testing
This page is educational. It supports the conversation with your own clinicians. It is not consent to any treatment, and it cannot assess you. If you are worried about a symptom now, see urgent warning signs.