Discovery: A woman's blood test will tell the date of birth of her child
A new way to predict the date of birth was discovered by scientists from an international research group. They learned on the analysis of the blood of a pregnant woman to determine exact date of delivery. The error is small - no more than a few days.
The results of a curious experiment are published in the authoritative edition of Science.
The essence of the discovery is as follows: from the analysis of blood, emit fragments of RNA from a woman, find among them those areas that are responsible for carrying a pregnancy and assess their condition. The closer the delivery, the more modified the individual RNA fragments.
It is their characteristic transformation and tell the date of birth.
To confirm the theoretical studies, the teachings were collected two groups of subjects.
In one of them entered 31 future mother. According to the selected fragments of RNA immunity of the mother, the baby’s liver and the placenta, it was possible to create a certain “model”. After analyzing the data of 20 women, scientists were able to determine the date of delivery for the remaining 11 women.
Determining the expected date of birth by ultrasound has an accuracy of about 48%, a new method for predicting blood tests gives an exact answer in 46% of cases.
The second group of subjects was presented premature babies.
From the blood samples of children and their mothers, it was possible to isolate more than 7 fragments of RNA, which clearly indicate a predisposition for early birth. The resulting fragments allowed the researchers predict preterm labor in six women out of eight. Accuracy, therefore, was more than 75%.
Laboratory testing of blood for RNA fragments is short and inexpensive, and therefore a new development, if it is adopted by hospitals and genitive houses, will help substantially accelerate the diagnosis of preterm birth risks, and also reduce the cost of predicting the date of birth for certain categories of expectant mothers.
