Why should I visit doctor earliest at pregnancy?

As soon as you miss the periods, the first thing you do is the urine pregnancy test, inform your elders and visit the doctors – mostly around 3 months of the pregnancy. But this norm has to be broken as the early you visit the doctor would be able to take your appropriate medical history, perform important medical investigations like hemoglobin, hemoglobin variant analysis to see whether you carry sickle cell or thalassemia and various other viral screening which are relevant to know how your pregnancy would be labeled as. Thought the pregnancy is very early, earliest scan is needed to know the location pf pregnancy and shape of uterus.

Very early ultrasound scan essential
As all the pregnancies might not be at the right place in the uterus and the condition is called ectopic pregnancy which is a life-threatening problem.

Can early pregnancy scan rule out fetal abnormalities?
Yes. structural abnormalities like absence of brain,skull bone and other such abnormalities can be detected.

Get counselling early in pregnancy
Down syndrome is a genetic condition which can occur in any ethnic racial or religious or socio-economic groups. Here the baby is born with 3 copies of chromosome 21 rather than 2 copies.therefore down syndrome is also called as trisomy 21.

The rate of this birth increases with the mothers age but however it can happen at any age.
Its councelling and screening should be offered routinely to all the pregnant women by 11-13 weeks which by means of blood test commonly called as doulble marker and ultrasound test called as (anti nuchal translusceny).

Is there any cure for down syndrome?
No! There is no cure for down syndrome.

Thus, it is imperative that you visit the doctor at the earliest to have a safe and smooth pregnancy. (Writer is HOD-Gynecology, Continental Hospitals)