Statistics for Down Syndrome Babies: The older you get the higher the risk

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Presenter: Paige Phelps ’21 | Major: Nursing

Mentor: Abdallah Talafha, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Abstract: Most people are aware of Down Syndrome, a congenital disorder arising from a chromosomal defect causing intellectual impairment and physical abnormalities. Most people also know that with increased age of the mother comes an increased risk for delivering a baby with Down Syndrome. The purpose of this research was to determine just how great this risk raises related to the age of the pregnant woman. I collected data from the National Down Syndrome Society regarding statistics on the correlation between age of a pregnant woman and the percentage of delivering a baby with Down Syndrome disorder, so I collected the data of women of the ages between 25 to 35 years old and the percentages of delivering a baby with this disorder for every age individually, which helped me to create a least-squares regression equation to predict the percentage risk individuals would have if they are 35 years old or older for delivering a baby with this disorder. After analyzing this data, I discovered that the women in these groups were found to have a greater chance, as predicted, for having a baby with Down Syndrome. The accuracy of this data was tested by creating a least-squares regression line on a graph, where it was found that approximately 77% of the points fit into the line, meaning that the research was, indeed, accurate.

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