Natera One^TM

Multi-Disease Genetic Carrier Screening

Learn your carrier status before becoming pregnant.

If you are pregnant, or are considering becoming pregnant, and are concerned about having a baby with a health problem, you may want to explore your options for genetic tests that can help to determine whether you are at risk for passing on an inherited genetic condition.

What is Genetic Carrier Screening?

Genetic carrier screening determines whether you and your partner carry one or more gene mutations in common that could put you at risk of having children with a particular genetic disorder. If both you and your partner are carriers for the same recessive genetic disorder, you have a 1 in 4 or 25% chance (with each pregnancy) of having an affected child. While all people carry a small number of recessive gene mutations that could cause a genetic disorder in their children, recessive diseases only occur when both parents are carriers for the same condition and both pass on the mutation to their offspring.

Carriers are typically healthy and have no symptoms.  Most people only become aware that they are carriers after having a child with a genetic disorder, or through carrier screening.

Genetic Carrier Screening Technology

Recent technology advances now allow laboratories to screen for multiple diseases at the same time for a relatively low cost. There are many testing panels available for genetic screening, called by a number of names, including ‘multi-disease’, ‘universal’, or ‘all-in-one’ genetic carrier screening.

The Natera Approach

At Natera we believe in responsible carrier screening — testing for diseases and mutations that deliver actionable results. We have selected the majority of diseases for our carrier screening panel, Natera One^TM, based on the recommended screening guidelines from the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) and American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 

Some other multi-disease carrier screening panels test for more diseases, however, many of the diseases on other panels are not severe which can make them inappropriate for prenatal carrier screening and family planning. Other panels include diseases with low detection rates and screening for these diseases does not significantly lower a patient’s carrier screening risk providing ambiguous or uninformative results.  Additionally larger panels can give overwhelming amounts of complex information often on diseases that are irrelevant for family planning which is often confusing to patients.                                         

Natera One™ is a responsible multi-disease screening panel. With Natera you know what your results mean and can feel confident in your test.