I am a 32 year old mother of one and currently am pregnant again.

1. I am not aware of what you mentioned, blood test for down syndrome. Can blood test really test down syndrome rate?

2. I went for amniocentesis during my first pregnancy because we missed the nuchal scan. It was a risky experience but we were first time parent then so we went for it.

i) Nuchal scan is a kind of scan where the doctor measure the back of the neck of the baby. They will measure it 3 times and then take an average. Anything below 20 is safe from having down syndrome child. However, this is only 70 - 80% accurate, I think.

ii) the amniotic fluid extraction test, I think is called Amniocentesis is where they put a needle into your tummy to extract the fluid out to go through a series of test. This is about 99% accurate.

Note: Usually, down syndrome test is only required for age 35 and above. Most of the time, nuchal scan will do for most parents.

3. Detailed scan is where the doctor scan for any abnormality in the baby. It will scan the baby brain, heart, kidney, arms, hands, fingers, thigh, leg, foot, toes, etc. It is accurate to a certain level.