New guidelines issued in Australia call for genetic carrier screening to be offered to a broader range of parents-to-be, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Previous guidelines, it notes, recommended offering carrier testing to only high-risk women.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists now recommends that information on carrier screening be offered to all women who are planning a pregnancy or who are in their first trimester of a pregnancy. "The feedback we got from the community was that the time is right to recommend it," Steve Robson, a professor at the Australian National University who led RANZCOG's Genomics Advisory Working Group & Women's Health Committee, tells the Herald.
The paper adds that Wendy Burton, the chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of GPs' Specific Interests Antenatal group, says the recommendations are reasonable, the cost of testing could lead to inequalities, as it is not publicly covered.