Taking the Harmony Prenatal Test in London
When other friends started getting pregnant again last year, I was a bit puzzled when they knew the baby’s gender as early as 12 weeks into their pregnancies. With my first pregnancy we didn’t find out before the 20-week scan and I had often heard it could be difficult for doctors to give an indication at the 12-week scan. But what has changed since my first pregnancy is the availability of the Harmony Prenatal Test.
The Harmony test is a simple blood test, which assesses the risk of Downs Syndrome (trisomy 21) and trisomies 18 and 13 by analysing the fetal DNA in the mother’s blood, and there’s also an option to request that they evaluate the baby’s gender. All my friends who’ve gone private in the last year have chosen to take this blood test, and I had it done at The Fetal Medicine Centre in Harley Street.
The test can be taken from 10 weeks into the pregnancy and it takes around two weeks to get the results back. The sample is sent to Ariosa Diagnostics in California, the molecular diagnostics company behind the Harmony test. Ariosa is using its proprietary technology to analyse cell-free DNA in the blood, and after reading about it, I’ve understood that what makes the Harmony test stand out from other cell-free DNA blood tests offered to pregnant women is the accuracy rates.
The Harmony Prenatal Test is offered at a number of ultrasound centres in central London, and at the renowned Fetal Medicine Centre we paid £400 for a package including a 10-week viability scan and Harmony Test and a 12-week nuchal translucency scan
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