Zhejiang Prenatal Diagnosis Center

Zhejiang Prenatal Diagnosis Center, set up in July 1999, is the first provincial prenatal center in China. It is in charge of technical guidance, training, quality management and examination in prenatai diagnosis for the whole Zhejiang province. Professor Lin Jun and professor Gu Peibao are the director and the first deputy director respectively and the other deputy directors are Lu Shiming, He Jing and Chen Yulan. Prenatal diagnosis, also referred to as intrauterine diagnosis or antenatal diagnosis, is to detect fetal health by means of prenatal diagnosis on the basis of genetic counseling, so as to take proper measures to prevent fetus with genetic diseases or congenital defects from being born and reduce the burden of family and society.Thus the quality of the entire population can be raised. Environmental factors can interact with a genetic predisposition to produce malformations. Newborn babies with congenital defects still account for about 13.7¡ë every year in our country. With the development of medical science, people have been exploring new technology to prevent fetus with serious congenital defects from being born. Researches in the prevention and treatment of congenital defects have also been made. Prenatal screening is one of the important methods which can screen high risk gestational women with certain kinds of congenital defects, especially neural tube defects, through economical, simple and non-invasive tests. Thus the risks of delivering a baby with congenital defects can be predicted and measures can be taken to avoid them. It is necessary to have prenatal diagnosis for women who are older than the average, especially for those who are older than 35years, whose previouschildren are defarmed, or who have a family history of congenital and genetic diseases, or intrauterine infection. Prenatal diagnosis includes amniocentesis for karyotype analysis, umbilical cord serum testing, and detailed ultrasonic scan .It is made for the diagnosis of new-borns with defects in the uterine. Prenatal diagnosis is different from usual antenatal care, which can make the diagnosis of congenital and genetic diseases before the baby is born, thus preventing those women from the pain of term labor, divesting the family and community from the burden of unhealthy children. It is of great importance to the improvement of population quality.