A simple heel prick test

As the time get near to the birth we are naturally excited. Looking forward to that healthy bouncing baby. Whether it is a planned labour an unexpected delivery the nursing staff do all in their power to assist. Afterwards baby gets all the appropriate checks including one that many most people never give much thought to. And that is a simple heel prick test. For most parents they will let the professionals do their work and not give a thought to why the needle is going in the little one’s foot. And at such a happy time why should they?

With this in mind this test was brought into a national screening program in the UK’s NHS in 1969. A simple heel prick test using Guthrie’s blood spot test. The test is used to diagnose a rare metabolic disorder. This condition is known as Phenylketonuria (PKU). In order to get a positive result they will have inherited 2 faulty copies of the gene for PKU one from each parent. Although there are over 300 different mutations the risk is the same for both males and females. .

Positive Heel prick test — what now?

The blood test that is taken from the heel prick test , parents receive the result in a couple of…