PreGGI

Marie-Sophie Müller

Prenatal knowledge and pregnancy

The Significance of Non-Invasive Prenatal Tests (NIPT) for Pregnant Women. A qualitative study.

NIPT is one of the latest achievements in the field of prenatal risk assessment and genetic counselling. It reforms the way in which information about the foetus is obtained during pregnancy. But what consequences do the information obtained from NIPT have for pregnant women and how do they influence their decisions about the course of further diagnostics and the experienced pregnancy?

In this dissertation project we will investigate how an experienced pregnancy is changed by the knowledge possibilities, the newly emerging non-knowledge and the increase in knowledge of a performed NIPT (in its currently available forms) and how pregnant women experience and deal with this test and its results. The research project should help to clarify the significance of NIPT within prenatal diagnostics and the socio-cultural and psycho-social consequences to be expected.

In order to find out what consequences the information obtained from NIPT has for expectant mothers, 10 to 20 semi-structured, qualitative interviews will be conducted with 5-10 pregnant women. One interview before and after the test, so that the emerging dynamics and the changing aspects of this section can be examined more closely. The evaluation of the interviews follows the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) according to Jonathan A. Smith.