Before the doctor allow us to go home, she recommended me to go to the nursery room and have my little boy’s newborn screening. At first, I really don’t know about it but my mom told me that it is the process of screening newborn babies for potentially dangerous conditions that may lead to mental retardation. It must be performed when the infant is between 48 and 72 hours of age.
Here are some of the common considerations in determining whether to screen for disorders according to Wikipedia:
- A disease that can be missed clinically at birth
- A high enough frequency in the population
- A delay in diagnosis will induce irreversible damages to the baby
- A simple and reasonably reliable test exists
- A treatment or intervention that makes a difference if the disease is detected early
The procedure is done by pricking the newborn baby’s heel to collect blood sample, enough to fill the filter paper with few circles of blood.