Mother's Blood Could Offer Insights Into Fetal Health

The study was published online Sept. 20 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Michael Katz, director of research and global programs for the March of Dimes, said the key result of this research may be that it "holds hope for a very safe technique [for prenatal screening] that involves only taking blood from the mother."

Another expert agreed. Dr. Roberto Romero is chief of the perinatology research branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which funded the study.

Romero said the study has "the potential to change the content of prenatal care by adding a new dimension of information. Specifically, the study of fetal mRNA in the maternal circulation can provide information about fetal function, development and response to insults [that] is not available today."

---

---

The next step will be to see what fetal mRNA is present in maternal blood in earlier stages of pregnancy, and then to measure the differences in mRNA between an uncomplicated pregnancy and a complicated one.

Romero characterized fetal medicine as the "terra incognita of medicine in the 21st century." He said ultrasound made "the human fetus visible and thus a patient who can be examined, diagnosed, and treated. However, the human fetus remains the most difficult patient in medicine," he added, "because it's relatively inaccessible and it presents diagnostic challenges which are difficult to solve within the womb."

"The study of fetal mRNA in maternal blood can provide information which is neither available or easy to obtain through other means that can help diagnose and likely treat [fetal] conditions that cannot be identified today," Romero said.

More information

For more on genetics and pregnancy, visit the March of Dimes.