They Trusted Their Prenatal Test. They Didn’t Know the Industry Is an Unregulated “Wild West.” – By Anna Clark, Adriana Gallardo, Jenny Deam and Mariam Elba (ProPublica) / Dec 6, 2022
As regulators stay on the sideline, a growing industry expands its reach but leaves some pregnant patients feeling misled and heartbroken.
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This story discusses pregnancy loss and termination.
Amanda wanted to warn someone. In June 2021, her daughter — the one she and her husband had tried for three years to conceive — had died after only 28 hours. With an underdeveloped nose, she had battled for every breath.
Nobody knew why. Later, an autopsy report revealed their daughter had an extra 13th chromosome. The condition is nearly always fatal.
“But didn’t we test for that?” Amanda recalled asking herself. “That was kind of where the lightbulb clicked.”
Through her doctor, Amanda had gotten a popular prenatal screening from a lab company. It had come back “negative.”
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