don't panic, it's not as bad as it sounds

I just got my results back a few weeks ago and got 1:209 for DS so I have been freaking a bit and researching. So the weird think is for me, this did not flag as a high risk, which surprised me because I thought it was around 1:300 (I just turned 42). I found a paper where they are finding that as you get older the detection rate goes up but so do false positives. So 1:100 is not as bad if you are older as if you were 25. So I looked at this paper and basically nobody had a ds (in the 40-42 group) child unless their results were below 1:100 (and many in that group did not end up having a ds child). So basically they were recommending droppng the high risk category for older women to below 1:100, which would put you outside that category.

Not sure if this makes any sense to you but I think you should talk to a genetic counselor about it. I can give you the reference to the paper if they haven seen it, or emil it to you. The OBs don't understand it, in my experience. The genetic counselors are very trained in this stuff and also trained to explain it. So obviously this is not the best results but the odds are very much in you favor that your baby won't have ds.

You OB may want you to do the 2nd tri screening. I am leery of that test because it has many false positives, and may just freak you out more.

jkl