The Nation - News from Aug. 6, 1987

Widely used blood tests can help identify one-quarter to one-third of the pregnant women whose babies will have Down’s syndrome, a study shows. The researchers said the test can help find the syndrome when it occurs in the fetuses of women who do not routinely have amniocentesis, a more involved test that can definitively screen for the birth defect. The test described in today’s New England Journal of Medicine uses the mother’s blood to check for levels of a substance called alpha-fetoprotein. Low amounts of this protein suggest that the fetus may have Down’s syndrome.