At the moment pregnant mothers who are in the high risk category of carrying an unborn baby who has Down’s syndrome have to go through tests that risk miscarriages but now no more.

A blood test has been developed by doctors that can detect the syndrome and this can save pregnant women from invasive examinations that risk miscarriage.

A technique to figure out the DNA differences in foetuses has been made by researchers in Cyprus.

Following this technique, they were able to detect 26 normal babies and 14 babies who had Down’s syndrome.

Project leader Dr Philippos Patsalis said, “The method is simple and fast and easy to perform in every lab ­worldwide because it does not require expensive equipment or software. The test is the first worldwide to demonstrate
100 per cent sensitivity and 100 per cent specificity in all normal and Down’s pregnancies tested.”

­Amniocentesis tests or chorionic villus sampling are the only two ways to find out if a baby has the syndrome these days and for the first test, fluid from around the unborn baby is taken that increases a miscarriage risk.

But with the current test this risk can be avoided.