The results of one thousand consecutive prenatal diagnoses

From 1976 to 1982, prenatal diagnosis was performed on more than 1,000 patients at the Richland Memorial Hospital. This report analyzes the experience of our unit with the first 1,000 consecutive studies. The integration of geneticist and clinician is stressed. A total of 77.7% of referrals were because of maternal age with the next most common indication being a prior child with a neural tube defect. There were 18 chromosomal abnormalities discovered, and no cases of open neural tube defect were detected. In all cases of elective termination of pregnancy in which follow-up was possible, the diagnosed abnormality was confirmed.