Patient's question:
I am an older mother, and this is my first pregnancy, so I am very concerned about thorough examinations. I hope my child does not have any genetic diseases, so I want to undergo an amniocentesis examination. Can amniocentesis completely rule out congenital abnormalities?Doctor's answer:
Amniocentesis involves puncturing the amniotic sac to extract a small amount of amniotic fluid. It is a definitive prenatal diagnostic method for analyzing the amniotic fluid, typically used as part of the screening for Down syndrome. In addition, it can identify qualitative traits of many genetic diseases. This is a test for fetal structural abnormalities, but the results are only probabilistic. This test cannot completely rule out abnormalities, but it can determine the highest likelihood of a particular condition.