Congenital defects - Detection is a national priority

The case for a national set of guidelines for prenatal screening, which would vastly increase the detection rate for congenital defects, is convincingly made in the Irish Examiner by one of the leading experts in the field.

Prof. Fergal Malone is the newly-appointed professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons and the Rotunda Hospital, who has extensive experience after more than a decade in North America.

A Government-funded national screening programme could expand the level of such detections from 10% or 15%, to 75% or 80% with the very obvious advantages for pregnant women that that implies.