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The heel prick test can help early detection and diagnosis of diseases in newborns

The heel prick test is a diagnostic method in genetic pathology and metabolic disorders, from which to have the appropriate treatment and increase the rate of recovery up to 95% for children’s healthy living. The most important thing is to prevent serious complications of prolonged diseases.

What Is A Heel Prick Blood Test?

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The newborn heel prick test is performed from 2 – 7 days old, but in the case of premature birth, babies can be drawn blood from the heel before 20 days old. In a special case, your baby needs a blood transfusion, a blood sample should be taken at 30 days old.

This method can be carried out by pricking your baby’s heel and putting a few drops of blood onto the filter paper, then left to dry and ship to laboratories for testing. Because the child’s heel has less sensitive skin than others and blood flow, making them easier to draw.

Testing Process

Heel prick blood test does not pose any risks to the child, on the contrary, the test could help diagnose conditions sooner, properly taking care of your baby to comprehensively develop, increase the rate of recovery up to 95% when your baby has related diseases.

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When should the heel prick test be done? The blood test is generally performed when a baby is 24 to 72 hours old, at least 8 times feedings after birth. For 5 minutes before the test, the doctor or nurse will guide parents or directly keep the baby’s feet with a wet towel at 42 degrees.

When performing to take heel prick, the doctor will lay a baby so that your child’s feet foot is lower than your child’s body, using a needle to take blood and absorb a few drops of blood into the filter paper for screening.

Results will typically be available 24 – 72 hours after testing. If detecting abnormalities, the doctors, where your baby was tested, will notify you of the result to help prevent and treat promptly.

The Importance of Heel Prick Test

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Nowadays, society becomes more and more developed, people pay more attention to health-care, especially for babies because the baby’s resistance is weak to resist serious illness. So, the diseases that are detected in the early stage when the disease is not yet onset would be easier to treat and minimize risks for children such as the nervous system, cerebral palsy, mental retardation.

Parents can be proactive in knowing the diseases caused by genetic factors and metabolic disorders in children through the newborn spot (heel prick) test. From the test results, the doctors will know if the child has an abnormal condition compared with other children.

Early treatment is not only good for the baby’s body to avoid damage but also helps parents save money, reducing working hours for the family to take care of the child.

For your baby is not performed a heel prick blood test, when the disease is onset, it shows that symptoms can quickly become seriously ill, which can be difficult to treat, seriously affects the child’s development, no ability to fully recover.

How Much Should A Blood Test Cost?

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How much should a blood test cost? The cost is not really as expensive as parents think. The price swing is from a few hundred thousand dongs to depending on the baby’s condition to calculate how many times they should baby attempt to take blood for testing. With a suitable price compare to the importance of newborn screening tests in order to detect the diseases ensuring your child’s health, parents should consider performing a heel prick blood test after birth.

What Are The Diseases Detected in The Heel Prick Test?

 “What are the diseases detected in the heel prick test?” is a top concern for parents. This is a simple and safe method with fast test results, which help detect conditions for the following diseases:

1. G6PD Deficiency

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G6PD deficiency is a genetic disease related to the recessive genes of the sex chromosome that children receive from parents. When children are deficient in G6PD, red blood cells will become unstable and fragile when meeting oxidation leading to hemolysis, lack of oxygen to supply the body’s activities.

G6PD deficiency is onset only when exposed to pathogens, making it difficult to detect. When G6PD deficiency will cause serious consequences for the baby such as jaundice. If the jaundice is prolonged, it will affect the nervous system, causing seizures, cerebral palsy, and even death. If the child is not treated in time lead be mental and physically retarded.

2. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Congenital adrenal hyperplasias (CAH) is a genetic disorder and considered a rate disease than others with the rate is 1/140.000. The disease occurs due to the disorder of hormone synthesis on the surface of the adrenal cortex causing deficiency of Cortisol and Aldosterone, but Testosterone is overproduced, resulting in changes in the genitals in girls, ambiguity about gender leading to a child is early puberty. If the disease can not be early detected in children, they might die from a lack of salt.

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Early detection of congenital adrenal hyperplasia is extremely important, with timely intervention and treatment, the baby will develop normally. However, this disease cannot be completely cured but requires drugs to support life.

3. Congenital Hypothyroidism

Congenital hypothyroidism is also known as dullness. The disease is thyroid hormone deficiency in children, causing the thyroid to become underactive and disorder in the metabolic rate, affecting the brain and developmental delay in children and impacting healthy-weight children. Not only impacting on physically but also impacting on metally in children.

For every 3,000 – 4,000 babies are born every year, there is 1 baby that has congenital hypothyroidism. However, the symptoms are quite vague, it is difficult to detect the disease until children have signs such as a delay in speech development and underweight child, slow-growing in height, parents are going to take their child to the hospital. At the moment, the child’s body has damaged and affects the brain. As a result, it is often difficult to treat and recover.

If the child is performed newborn screening after birth, they will be promptly treated in the first two weeks of illness, which will prevent negatively affect child development.

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The heel prick test for newborn screening is essential. Parents should take care of newborn screening to ensure safety for a child’s healthy development. It’s difficult to detect diseases with the naked eye and unclear symptoms until the onset of diseases occurs is too late, which not only impacts on child both physical and mental health status but also leading to risk factors for death.

Please the branch location or the nearest branch your home to visit for tests and get quick online results. For more detailed information about our test menu and price list, visit here.

The site cannot and does not contain medical advice. The medical information is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals.