Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Results
By Mayo Clinic staffYour health care provider will use your age and the results of the quad screen to gauge your risk of carrying a baby who has certain developmental or chromosomal conditions. Other factors, such as your personal or family health history, also may affect your risk. Your health care provider or a genetic counselor will help you understand this risk and what it means for your pregnancy.
Quad screen results are given as a probability, such as a one in 5,000 risk of carrying a baby who has Down syndrome. Generally, if the risk is one in 380 or higher, the test is considered positive.
Keep in mind that a positive quad screen simply means that levels of some or all of the substances measured in your blood were abnormal. This can happen for various reasons, including:
- A miscalculation of how long you've been pregnant
- A multiple pregnancy
- In vitro fertilization
- The presence of other medical conditions, such as type 1 diabetes
If your test results are positive, your health care provider may recommend an ultrasound to verify the baby's gestational age and confirm the number of babies. During the ultrasound, your health care provider will also evaluate your baby's growth, study the placenta and identify possible abnormalities.
The quad screen correctly identifies about 80 percent of women who are carrying a baby who has Down syndrome. About 5 percent of women have a false-positive result, meaning that the test result is positive but the baby doesn't actually have Down syndrome.
When you consider your test results, remember that the quad screen only indicates your overall risk of carrying a baby who has certain developmental or chromosomal conditions. A low-risk result doesn't guarantee that your baby won't have one of these conditions. Likewise, a high-risk result doesn't guarantee that your baby will be born with one of these conditions.
Often, abnormal test results are an invitation to consider further diagnostic testing, such as amniocentesis. This test is more invasive than is the quad screen and carries a slight risk of miscarriage, but it gives more specific information about your baby's health. Although ultrasound can often be used to detect spina bifida and anencephaly, an invasive test is the only way to diagnose chromosomal disorders.
The bottom line: Discuss the test results with your health care provider. A genetic counselor also can help you understand your options.
