Pregnancy & Newborn Screening
If you are pregnant you can have screening for HIV for yourself, and for conditions such as Trisomy 18, Trisomy 13, Down syndrome or Turner syndrome, in your baby.
Screening for hearing loss and metabolic disorders (the heel prick test) are also available for your new baby.
Your Antenatal and Newborn Screening Timeline
Before pregnancy
Get information about screening for you and your baby
During your pregnancy
Week 1 – 12: By week nine you should be looking at having HIV screening with the other routine 1st antenatal blood tests. These tests should be discussed with your midwife, GP or obstetrician. At this time, you could also discuss first trimester combined screening for Down syndrome and other conditions
Week 12 – 28: First trimester combined screening is available until you reach 13 weeks and 6 days. If you are more than 14 weeks pregnant and less than 20 weeks and wish to have screening for Down syndrome and other conditions, you can consider second trimester maternal serum screening.
Week 28 – 40: During this time you are planning for your baby's birth. Discuss newborn metabolic screening and newborn hearing screening with your midwife, GP or obstetrician. These will be offered for your baby after his/her birth.
After baby is born
0 – 2 days: Newborn metabolic screening ideally carried out between 48 and 72 hours after baby is born.
0 – 30 days: Newborn hearing screening should be carried out within 1 month after baby is born
Screening can find out whether you or your baby have an increased chance or a low chance of having the particular condition being screened for.
Further testing is always required to find out whether or not the condition is actually present. Then if a condition is found you can discuss management or treatment options with your doctor or midwife.
In this section
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Antenatal care for pregnant women continues to be provided across the COVID-19 traffic light system.
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Screening can provide some information about the chance of your baby having Down syndrome or another condition. The screening options available provide a risk estimate for Down syndrome (trisomy21), trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) and some other rare genetic disorders.
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The Newborn Metabolic Screening Programme screens for rare but potentially serious disorders such as phenylketonuria (PKU), cystic fibrosis, and congenital hypothyroidism.
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Newborn hearing screening checks whether your baby hears well. If your baby has a hearing loss, finding it early will help their language, learning and social development. All eligible babies can have newborn hearing screening free of charge.
Page last updated: 13 November 2014