[Prenatal diagnostics: current medical aspects]

During the last few years, there has been a rapid development in prenatal diagnosis. Due to the improvements in sonographic examinations and the introduction of first-trimester screening, the number of invasive prenatal diagnostic procedures has dropped by more than 50 %. Recently, noninvasive prenatal diagnostic tests with cell-free fetal DNA from maternal blood have also become available and will further enhance this development. As invasive prenatal procedures will become less frequent in the near future, the proportion of procedure-related abortions will further decrease.