In some circumstances, a pregnant woman may need to urgently do a DNA test on their unborn child, and can't wait 9 months until they are born, There can be a number of reasons for this - from wanting to verify the paternity of the child, to testing for inheritable diseases. In the past, a prenatal DNA test was a tricky, invasive procedure which would be unpleasant for the mother and potentially dangerous for the baby. Generally speaking, physicians would be reluctant to even carry out the procedure unless there was a pressing & urgent medical need.
Luckily, that has all changed thanks to the fairly recent discovery of cell-free fetal DNA. Put simply, this means that minute traces of the baby's DNA can be detected in the mother's bloodstream. A doctor, nurse or phlebotomist can take a simple blood sample from the mother's arm and send it to a testing lab, where scientists can isolate and extract the baby's DNA. If the pregnant woman requires a paternity test, the potential father would supply a DNA sample taken with a cheek swab, and the two samples would be compared in the lab.
If you would like more information about prenatal DNA testing, there is an excellent article on the subject here.
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