PKU test required? - Page 2

[Kellyh_01]

We did it for all of our babies. If you choose not to ask your nurse for the waiver to sign. They cannot force you to do it if you don't want to.

[pollyanna123]

We definitely choose to do the newborn screening. If your baby has PKU and you catch it early, you can prevent mental retardation.

We do it at the pediatrician's office at 2 days and the follow up at 14 days.

[myk]

absolutely. PKU is one of the extremely few conditions where it's not always appropriate to breastfeed - you can, but it needs to be monitored, or you can use specialized formula. too much phenylalinine can cause brain damage, so you want to make sure you are doing the right thing for your child.

[Mama2Kayla]

Originally Posted by MaerynPearl

We will not be doing it until DD is about a week old, because its less reliable before breastfeeding is established... but we will be doing it then.

^same for us
This is one test I would never refuse. I met a mama in my BIO class last semester whose son has this genetic condition. Luckily it was caught early before any major damage was done.

[bella99]

My daughter had the test done shortly before we were discharged from the birth center. She slept through it. (We had to redo the thyroid test at 3 weeks because of abnormal values and she most definitely did not sleep through that)

A friend of mine had two children test positive for one of the rare genetic diseases that the test looks for. One turned out to a carrier of the disease, and the other, luckily, has only a "mild" form of the disease, Galactosemia.

In a disease like that, Karika, by the time symptoms start to show, it's too late, the damage has been done, possibly enough to cause death. And if you were breastfeeding? It would have been your milk doing the damage.

To me, it's worth it, because so many of the diseases they are looking for can be fatal, and the sooner you know, the sooner you can make necessary changes and get treatment.

[mkmoro311]

We did ours at our first well baby visit. I'm not a fan of pricking, cutting, injecting anything into a newbaby at a hospital.

If your first child was negative, is it most likely your other children will be as well?

[MaerynPearl]

Originally Posted by mkmoro311

We did ours at our first well baby visit. I'm not a fan of pricking, cutting, injecting anything into a newbaby at a hospital.

If your first child was negative, is it most likely your other children will be as well?

not necessarily. its more if your first child was positive, your next children have a greater chance of being positive as well... but if your first was negative (unless you know you have a family history) your next child pretty much has the same chance as the general public.