Experience of Pregnancy and Prenatal Diagnosis 2006

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In 1992 the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung was given the statutory mandate to develop target-group-specific concepts and media for sex education and family planning. In order to meet the requirements of specific target groups, social changes and, for example, new standards in prevention and health promotion must be taken into account.

In the field of prenatal diagnosis (PND) the rapid technical development of recent decades has led to consi¬derable changes. Almost every woman is now offered at least one prenatal diagnostic investigation during her pregnancy.
However, with the rapid establishment of prenatal diagnosis in doctors’ practices, it is not necessarily the case that women are better informed about the significan¬ce, purpose, methods and possible consequences of PND: the level of information of pregnant women does not appear to have kept pace with the spread of PND.

The Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung has undertaken the task of developing appropriate educational services relating to prenatal diagnosis which are tailored to needs of the target group. The media, materials and pilot schemes are aimed at enabling pregnant women to make an informed, responsible decision on whether to make use of the prenatal diagnostic investigations available. These information and educational services are based on scientific knowledge gained from studies, expertise and evaluations.

The representative study ‘Experience of pregnancy and prenatal diagnosis’ is based on a survey of 559 women who were in the 20th to 40th week of pregnancy at the time of the survey, 16 women who lost their child after the 13th week of pregnancy and 170 women shortly after giving birth. The women filled in an extensive questionnaire with detailed questions regarding their experience of pregnancy, utilisation of various PND services, their level of information, their attitudes and their assessment of various aspects of medical advice and treatment.
The research report presented here briefly documents a few important results.