woman's hand touching baby's hand

Newborn Screening

Newborn Screening

Many hospital systems and several states test newborns for congenital CMV at birth. Early diagnosis allows for treatment and monitoring for the infant, and for families to be prepared. 

The National CMV Foundation supports universal newborn congenital CMV screening; in other words we believe that all babies should be screened at birth.
 
If your baby is older than three weeks, families interested in obtaining their baby's dried blood spot (DBS) for testing should ask their physician to call the appropriate contact per this Newborn Blood Spot Screening list by state.  More information is available by looking up your state on the Baby's First Test website.There are at least three Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) validated labs that can run DBS CMV PCR assays, including ARUP at the University of Utah, the University of Washington Virology Laboratory, and the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Translational Research.
 
 

Types of congenital CMV screening programs

Universal/Routine Screening
All infants are screened for congenital CMV at birth. With the right type of test, this screening approach detects all infants with congenital CMV. 

Hearing Targeted Screening 
Only infants who refer or do not pass their newborn hearing screening are tested for congenital CMV. Because most babies with congenital CMV do not have hearing loss at birth, this type of screening program only identified 7% of babies with congenital CMV.

Expanded Targeted

Infants who are born with certain physical exam findings (e.g. small head size, enlarged liver etc) or who refer/do not pass their newborn hearing screening are tested for congenital CMV. This increases the detection rate to about 15%.

Congenital CMV Screening Protocols

The doctors knew Cameron's problem was viral, but they couldn't pinpoint the virus. Finally, after about 2 days, my placenta lab test came back and it was infected with CMV. I was so relieved that Cameron was going to survive, but I was not ready for the next bombshell. The NICU doctor told us that as a result of is brain damage, Cameron would not be able to “walk, talk or learn."
— Julie, Mother