More than 15,000 pregnant women underwent tests to determine the likelihood of congenital abnormalities in their unborn children every year between 2000 and 2002, despite the government's recommendation that the practice be scrapped, it was learned Saturday.
According to a study by Haruhiko Sago, of the National Center for Child Health and Research, the test -- the maternal blood serum marker test -- is used to check the likelihood of children being born with such maladies as Down's syndrome and neural tube defects.
It is a simple test that involves taking a blood sample, but the government issued a recommendation in June 1999 that doctors not suggest that pregnant women have the test as it could lead to a "weeding out" of fetuses with such diseases.