Prenatal diagnosis in Portugal.

On practical terms we can say that prenatal diagnosis (PND) only started in Portugal in 1984 after the Abortion Act was approved by Parliament. Since then the demand for PND has been increasing, but we realise that the coverage of high-risk pregnancies as well as screening for fetal abnormalities in the general population are below the desirable levels. Among the factors that contribute to this we can mention the bad planning in some services, the low standard of ultrasound scans in the low-risk pregnancies, the small number of public cytogenetics laboratories performing fetal karyotyping, the scarcity of genetic counsellors and last but not least the inadequate limit of 16 weeks for termination of pregnancies in case of fetal malformation.