X-RAYS X-RAYS X-RAYS- HELP NEEDED NOW!!!

[lalaland1]

1 MISCARRIAGE + 1 TERMINATION DUE TO MULTIPLE/ABNORMAL PREGNANCY LAST YEAR. TRYING FOR BABY AGAIN. SURE I WASN'T PREGNANT SO WENT TO DENTIST,HAD TOOTH REPAIRED + X-RAY.NOW SO PANICKY 'COS VERY LIKELY PREGNANT.AM OVERDUE TOMORROW. SO SCARED 'COS OF X-RAY AT TIME OF CONCEPTION/IMPLANTATION THAT I CAN'T STOP PRAYING FOR PERIOD TO COME. PLEASE,PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW OF RISKS/DANGERS OF X-RAYS!!! CAN'T FACE ANOTHER HEARTBREAK!!

A dental x-ray would not be any risk at all to an unborn baby. The amount of radiation that your actual tooth area got is less than the extra radiation you'd get from going on a plane to somewhere like Spain, and the amount to your womb would be 1/500th of that, so teeeny tiny amount.

So honestly, nothing to worry about at all. And I am qualified to say this

Didn' wear a lead apron and every where you see they say to absolutely avoid x-rays.Sure you sure???!

dental xrays have such a small amount of radiation it would be negligble, a very very small dose. the xray tube would have been aimed at your mouth and not at your abdomen (i hope so anyway)

i have personally xrayed pregnant ladies and have never heard of any problems being reported ever. im a radiographer and worked whilst being pregnant with ds2. when i had ds1 i was pregnant without knowing and was working as a veterinary nurse, we werent so hot on wearing lead aprons whilst xraying animals so i was really close to the xray whilst holding down a dog. he is normal as a 9 year old boy can be

DONT WORRY

did the dentist not ask if there was a chance you could be pregnant?

cmotdibbler seems to have very reassuring advice

Also when I was done and said to dentist about trying for a baby (after x-ray had been taken) she looked up from notes slightly panicky looking and asked sort of shocked like if I was pregnant now. And I said no 'cos I didn't think so. Now wondering what she would have asked/said further if I had said yes!

cmotdibbler is right - you recieve more radiation whilst on a long haul flight than you would from a standard chest xray.
i have seen a lady who didnt know she was pregnant till her spine was xrayed!!! and it turned out she was about 5 mths and still having periods. all was fine

she would have just given you a lead apron to wear and checked you were happy to go ahead with it.

have a read of this just remember they are talking about when an xray beam is being aimed at your abdomen which is about 60 times a stronger exposure than a dental exposure

Thank you all so much for replying so quickly!!! With my torrid pregnancy history you can understand the paranoia. Will calm down now and go buy test tomorrow.Fingers crossed! Much love to you all!

Lead aprons actually make no difference in the dose to the uterus from dental x-rays anyway, and in fact they aren't supposed to use them on patients in dental radiography now.

Dentists know bgr all about x-rays, but are told not to do them on ladies known to be pg unless really necessary as its just considered to be good practice to limit radiation from medical procedures to only that really required in pregnancy.

In my past job, I used to calculate the dose received by the babies of ladies who needed to have radiotherapy whilst they were pg. We never came across a case when it presented a major risk to the baby, and this was giving 1000s of times higher doses to the treatment area.

So glad I joined mums as I have been frantic for about 3 days now,waking in the night unable to sleep and it would take an eternity to get real answers from elsewhere. Hope this thread helps calm others out there!

Glad that you feel better about it now.

Just wanted to clarify (can you tell I'm a scientist ?) that this was radiotherapy not to the abdominal area, but to the breast and above.

ok im at work and found out a patients leaflet for you, some facts are;

we get background radiation all day every day, 14% cosmic, 58% radon, 12% from food (scary thought) and 16% from the ground.
having a dental xray is the same radiation dose of a few days natural background radiation.

it has a negligible risk of harm, at less than 1 in 1,000,000

hope that help