by BabyCenter Guest Blogger posted in Pregnancy

By Bonnie Rochman
When I got pregnant with my first child, I knew next to nothing about prenatal testing. Fortunately, I had a friend who was due just a week after me. She could not believe that nuchal translucency testing to gauge Down syndrome risk wasn?t routine in the U.S. as it was in her home country of Israel.
My friend tracked down a doctor who was getting certified to perform this test and needed some guinea pigs, so we signed up. The nuchal translucency test combines a blood draw with an ultrasound to measure the amount of fluid beneath the skin at the back of a fetus?s neck. At the time, I didn?t give any thought to why exactly I was doing this test or what exactly I would do if the results were not what I anticipated. While wading into research and reporting for my new book, The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids ? And the Kids We Have (Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux), I discovered my experience with prenatal testing wasn't all that uncommon.

So many women I interviewed said they signed up for tests without fully understanding why or what the tests could reveal or ? perhaps most importantly ? what they would do if they didn?t get the kind of results they were hoping for.
In the years since that first baby of mine was born, expectant mamas can choose from an even more extensive array of prenatal testing options. Specialized blood tests and ultrasounds, along ...