Ultrasound tests - The mainstay of modern obstetric diagnosis is the ultrasound scan (or sonography). Similar to radar, real-time scanners employ very-high-frequency pul...

Ultrasound scans: small babies - Frequent prenatal ultrasound exposure could restrict fetal growth by a third. ...

Hiv test giving false positives in 5% of all cases - Thousands of people wrongly believe they are HIV infected because of the standard Western blot test which is giving false positive results in nearly 5...

Ultrasound: the scan scam - Women believe that they can ensure the well being of their babies by having ultrasound scans and that the earlier any problems are detected, the bette...

Poor outcome for prenatal "gee whiz" scan - The newest type of ultrasound scan the nuchal translucency scan is not much more accurate than a normal scan for detecting Downs' syndrome. For the la...

Amniocentesis - Any thoughts on this pregnancy test (which we erroneously described as a 'condition', apologies for which), asked a reader last time.

Ultrasound tests - What to do instead - * Avoid Doppler, particularly the duplex variety for detecting the baby’s heartbeat and pulse; the ‘Doptone’ fetal-pulse detector is a commonly used h...

The afp test - A flawed test in the search for perfection - To reassure women that their babies are healthy, medicine has come up with a battery of tests that look for fetal abnormalities. Some, like amniocente...