VQ scan

[ceho88]

Hi

has anyone ever had a VQ scan? I had one last week when my baby was 6 days old for a suspected PE (was clear) and was told not to breastfeed for 12 hours but I’ve since read online I should have had no contact with my baby for 12 hours also due to the radiation risk.

No one mentioned this to me (in fact after the scan the nurse actually said to me “I bet you can’t wait to cuddle your baby!”) and I’m now panicking as I definitely cuddled her afterwards. Is anyone who has been in a similar boat please able to share their experience and put my mind at ease a bit? :(

Standard advice is not to cuddle your baby for 12 hours after but I think the risks are very low. If you took baby on a few long haul flights it’s probably a similar amount of radiation and you wouldn’t worry about that.

Vq scan isn’t on here but it’s approx double the ct scan dose and you can see how that compares to day to day stuff. But remember that dose would have been for you actually having the scan. Any radiation transfer to baby would have been much lower. The hospital I work at use ct scans rather than vq for postnatal women for this reason.

Okay thanks. I actually only had the dye injected through the IV, I didn’t have to breathe anything in through a mask, so hoping my exposure would have been lower.

does anyone else have any insight please?

Just bumping to see if anyone else had any insight on this please?

I used to work in admin in Nuclear Medicine many moons ago.

A VQ scan is less radiation exposure than a CT which is why it was done on ladies who'd just had a baby but also we scanned a LOT of pregnant ladies and obviously they are in direct contact with their babies at that point.

They used to perform part of the scan and if there was no evidence to suggest a PE from that they didn't perform the second part to avoid further unnecessary exposure which sounds like what happened to you.

Hope you and baby are doing well now 😊

Thank you for the reply, I really appreciate it. Baby and I are doing fine now.

Sorry for the follow up question, do you think it was safe for me to hold my baby? I only held him for 30 mins directly after the scan and then not again til til much much later (my husband took him home after this as it was late in the day and then fed him overnight as I couldnt breastfeed) so I’m hoping that amount of exposure couldn’t have done much harm? :( Would appreciate your opinion.

I was only admin so can't comment from a medical point of view but I certainly remember seeing husbands coming with their wives and babies and them holding them immediately afterwards. And also the woman who were still pregnant exposed their babies more.

It's a real worry I know (DS broke his leg just before he turned 3 and had multiple X-rays and I hated it!) but I am sure you would have been told if you couldn't hold your baby 😊

If you look at section 5 of this link it says to avoid extended periods of more than 30 minutes which is the maximum you did anyway

www.kch.nhs.uk/Doc/pl%20-%201002.1%20-%20investigations%20for%20suspected%20blood%20clots%20during%20or%20after%20pregnancy.pdf

Sorry can't do clicky links 🫣

Thank you - I did see that link but also saw others saying avoid holding them at all so just got myself into a panic.