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Miscarriage Testing

Molecular Karyotype with Parental Support™

When you need answers, Natera can help.

If you have experienced a miscarriage, you probably have many questions about why you lost your pregnancy, and what to do next. Pregnancy loss, or miscarriage, happens more frequently than you might think.  In fact, it occurs in up to 25% of all pregnancies. The chance of having a miscarriage increases with age – from close to 10% for women in their 20s to nearly 50% for women in their early to mid-40s.  More than half of first-trimester miscarriages are caused by a chromosome abnormality.

Most pregnancies that involve chromosome abnormalities end in miscarriage during the first 12 weeks. If you have experienced a miscarriage due to a chromosome abnormality, it is still very possible to have a healthy child in the future.

Natera's Miscarriage Test is Faster and Provides more Information

Natera’s Miscarriage Testing, a form of Molecular Karyotyping, provides more information faster than traditional cytogenetic karyotyping. Natera uses a SNP array with a proprietary technology called Parental Support, which not only detects extra or missing chromosomes, and deletions or duplications, as accurately as traditional karyotyping, but also detects when maternal cell contamination has occurred. Natera collects a maternal blood sample to compare with fetal tissue sample to ensure that the miscarriage tissue tested came from the fetus and not the mother. Other testing methods cannot make this determination, leading to miscarriage testing error or confusion if results are normal female. Natera returns miscarriage test results to physicians within 2 days of receipt of the sample, and has a result failure rate of <1%.

Miscarriage testing from Natera gives you the best chance of finding the answers you need. Natera’s miscarriage test does what neither aCGH nor traditional karyotyping can, including detecting all forms of triploidy and Uniparental Disomy (UPD), identifying maternal cell contamination, and determining the parental source of aneuploidy.

Is testing right for you?

Miscarriage chromosome testing can be particularly beneficial if you:

  • Want to better understand why you experienced pregnancy loss
  • Have had multiple miscarriages
  • Are uncertain about undergoing other medical tests related to recurrent pregnancy loss

The choice to have chromosome testing after a miscarriage is very personal. Although not all doctors will recommend chromosome testing for a pregnancy loss, it can be helpful for many couples who suffer a miscarriage and want to know the cause.

If a chromosome abnormality is found, it can reduce the number of other medical studies you might need to undergo. Knowing the reason for a miscarriage may help you cope with the loss and start the emotional healing sooner.

Next steps 

  1. Talk with your doctor about testing your sample
  2. Ask your IVF physician for Natera testing
  3. Have tissue and blood samples collected
  4. Discuss the results with your physician