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
