When pregnant with my second child I decided to get a nuchal fold scan. Once you hit 30 the chance of having a child with downs syndrome increases significantly the older you get. Unfortunately, the hospital I was booked into didn't offer this scan. I had to pay to get it done privately.I booked a scan at the Fetal Medical Centre in Harley Street, which cost £150 for the scan and blood test. They asked me the date of my LMP (last monthly period) to make sure the scan took place between 11 and 13 weeks. My scan was booked in for when I would be 12 weeks exactly. The centre is in the basement of a building, so you do need to navigate down some fairly narrow steps. The waiting room is light and spacious, with sofas to sit and relax in while you wait. This is just as well, as they were running late when we visited and we had quite a long wait. The first part of the nuchal screening involved them taking blood from me. This was done easily, with no fuss and only the usual pinprick of pain. I then had another long wait until it was my turn for the scan. My advice if you go here, is take a good book or magazine. Thank goodness the equipment is so modern you don't need a full bladder, as that would have been torture.We were eventually called in for the scan. I unbuttoned my jeans and the sonographer tucked some paper towel into the waistband so that she didn't get gel on my clothes. The screen was facing me. The sonographer put the little device on my belly and a little alien creature (my baby) came up on the screen. It's a bit disconcerting seeing the baby straight away. My first thought was, it's not moving! Luckily, the sonographer, who is trained to spot fetal movements said very quickly, 'there's the baby moving around…' The scan was wonderful. The sonographer talked through all of the measurements and did them in front of us, so we had a long look at the baby. She measured the fold in the neck and checked that the nasal cavity was developing. The baby's heartbeat was checked and she even checked to make sure that blood was flowing freely from me to the baby. I'm not sure how long we were in the room looking at our baby, but it was a thorough scan giving us a good look at all the baby's bits and pieces.
The result from the blood test and the scan was that the baby was low risk for Down Syndrome. Having such a detailed scan meant that my husband and I were confident and happy with our baby's development. Although it was a long wait in the waiting room before hand, it was worth it and now my husband and I are debating of we should blow another £150 on finding out the baby's sex. All the profits made at the Fetal Medicine Centre based in Harley Street London are donated to the Fetal Medicine Foundation.