1. The breakthrough should prevent thousands of miscarriages when the screening system is introduced across the country in a few years, say scientists. ‘At present, if doctors want to test a foetus to find out if it has Down‘s syndrome, or the blood disease thalassaemia, they have to stick a needle into the womb and remove tissue that surrounds the foetus,‘ said one of the project leaders, Professor Stan Urbaniak of Aberdeen University. ‘Unfortunately that carries a small but significant risk of triggering a miscarriage and, given that these tests – such as amniocentesis – are given to tens of thousands of women every year, this causes hundreds of spontaneous abortions.‘ Non–invasive pre–natal diagnosis (NIPD) is being used in trials in Aberdeen and Bristol to test for the potentially fatal haemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN), which occurs when a baby with rhesus–positive blood is born to a mother who is rhesus–negative.