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Newborn blood spot (heel prick)
A few drops of blood from a baby’s heel at two to five days old, dried on a card, screened for a couple of dozen rare conditions that are treatable if caught before symptoms start.
This page describes screening programmes; it is not a diagnosis, not a personal risk assessment and not a substitute for your own health service. Age bands are set nationally and change — the invitation you receive, and the body named on your country page, outrank anything written here. Screening is for people without symptoms: a new lump, blood you can see, a mole that has changed, unexplained weight loss or a sudden change in vision or hearing needs a clinician now, whatever a recent screening result said.
Where it is organised
Nowhere in this region as an invitation programme. That is a decision rather than an oversight, and the section below explains the reasoning. It also means nothing will arrive in the post: if this is something you want checked, you have to ask for it.
The most cost-effective screening there is
This is the quietest programme in the whole system and arguably the best. A midwife pricks the baby’s heel, presses out four or five drops of blood onto a printed card, and the card goes to a national laboratory. The conditions it looks for are individually rare — most parents will never hear their names — but they share one property that makes screening overwhelmingly worthwhile: untreated they cause irreversible brain damage or death within weeks to months, and treated from birth most children develop normally. Phenylketonuria, congenital hypothyroidism and congenital adrenal hyperplasia are the classic three; modern panels run to roughly two dozen metabolic and endocrine disorders, and Sweden’s national list adds severe combined immunodeficiency, spinal muscular atrophy and cystic fibrosis.
Why the timing is fixed
The sample is taken between about 48 hours and five days of age, and the window is not arbitrary. Too early and the metabolites the test is looking for have not accumulated, because the mother’s circulation was doing the work until birth; too late and a baby with one of these conditions has already begun to be damaged. If your baby went home very early, or was born at home, the sample still has to be taken — a community midwife or the maternity unit will arrange it, and it is worth actively confirming it happened rather than assuming.
How the result comes back
For the overwhelming majority of families, it does not. No news is a normal result. If the laboratory flags a sample you will be contacted quickly, and the first step is almost always a repeat sample rather than a diagnosis, because a borderline result on a screening test is much commoner than the disease. Preterm babies, babies who had a blood transfusion, and babies on intensive care often need a repeat for technical reasons that have nothing to do with them being ill.
What it is not
The blood spot is not a genetic survey and it is not a general health check. It looks for a specific list of treatable conditions and nothing else, so it cannot reassure you about anything outside that list. It does not replace the newborn physical examination, the hearing screen, or the checks on the baby’s weight and feeding in the first weeks. The panel differs between countries — a family moving from one country in this region to another may find a condition on one list and not the other — which is worth knowing if you are comparing what your children were tested for.
Sources: Socialstyrelsen — newborn screening recommendations (24 congenital diseases, SCID, SMA, cystic fibrosis) · Valtioneuvoston asetus seulonnoista 339/2011 (Finlex) — the Finnish screening decree · checked 2026-09-07
Preguntas frecuentes
When is the newborn heel prick done?
Between roughly 48 hours and five days of age. Earlier than that and the substances the test measures have not built up yet; later and a baby with one of these conditions may already have been harmed.
What does the newborn blood spot test for?
A national panel of rare but treatable conditions — around two dozen metabolic and endocrine disorders in most of this region, with some countries also screening for severe combined immunodeficiency, spinal muscular atrophy and cystic fibrosis.
We were not told the result — should we worry?
No. For the blood spot, no news is normal news. If a sample is flagged, families are contacted quickly and the usual next step is a repeat sample, because borderline screening results are far commoner than the conditions themselves.
Can we decline the heel prick?
It is offered, not compulsory, and you can decline. It is worth understanding first what is being declined: these are conditions where treatment started in the first weeks usually means a normal childhood, and where waiting for symptoms usually means permanent harm.
The rest of the surface
Breast cancer screening (mammography)
An X-ray of each breast, read by two radiologists, repeated every two years across a band of ages that starts at 40 in Sweden and 50 almost everywhere else. What it finds, what it misses and what a call-back means.
Cervical screening (HPV test)
Almost every country in the region has switched from looking for abnormal cells to looking for the virus that causes them. The test is better, so the gap between tests is longer — and in several countries you can now take the sample yourself.
Bowel cancer screening (stool test)
A sample from one bowel movement, taken at home and posted. It is the only screening programme in the region that routinely prevents cancers rather than only finding them early — because the follow-up removes the polyp.
Prostate screening (PSA)
Latvia and Lithuania fund PSA testing for men in their fifties and sixties. Sweden assessed the same evidence and recommends against an organised programme. Here is what the trials actually found.
Lung cancer screening (low-dose CT)
The trials are positive and the European recommendation asks countries to build programmes stepwise. In this region it is still pilots rather than invitations — but the eligibility rule is worth knowing.
What screening can and cannot do
Overdiagnosis, false positives, interval cases and lead-time bias — the four ideas behind every disagreement between countries.
All 27 screening pagesIf the result is not normal
The record that makes the appointment shorter
TempoLife keeps weight, blood pressure, sleep and symptoms in one place, so the questions you get asked at a screening appointment already have answers.