Ultrasound scan: when too many?

[LaRusse]

Hi, all. I have had 3 US scans and just about to have my 20 week structural check, etc. Have read that ultrasound scan's benefits DO NOT outweigh the possible hazards on baby's future health. Dead worry about it and about to cancel any visits to maternical clinique and just let it go naturally but my DH has gone allo bonkers about it. Any thoughts?

I had twelve scans with dts, as they are aidentical so had to have a scan every 2 weeks because of risk of twintwin transfusion.

hi waterfalls, are you any worried about the possible impact? I am having battles of statistics and medical research home and nformation about it so limited!

radical m/w link

Personally after reading up more and more about it, I decided to keep sacans at a minimum with ds3....
love
Kerstin

I had about 7 scans in total on ds. The consultant radiologist told me that the only postnatal differences that had been found between babies who had had many scans and babies who had had few was a slight increase in left-handedness among the many-scans group. OToneHand left-handedness doesn't sound a big deal, but OTOH it relates to the brain, so potentially scarey. That said, ds is right-handed, healthy, intelligent, and in all ways absolutely fine. He's 6 now.

Do the 20w scan at least, because it is very informative. Then decide. Frankly, possible left-handedness weighed against detecting one of many potential problems...I know which I'd chose.

Had at least 6 scans with dd. Had the two normal NSH scans (at 14 and 20 weeks) but then had to have additional scans due to lack of movement, checking growth and blood flow.
I had been concerned as I'd read that scans can affect the brain but they don't know too much about it, but she's nearly a year old, reached everything early - early walking, early talking etc etc.
A friend had to have weekly growth scans past the 30 week mark, her DD is a year old too and absolutely perfect.
The 20 week scan is v important IMO and you should have it.

I had 5 scans with dd2. two normal scans at 12 weeks and 20 weeks, one scan when I was supposed to ahve a CVS which didn't happen, one with the amnio which I had instead of the CVS and a scan at 26 weeks to check the babies heart.

I never gave them a second thought as they were all to check on the safety and wellbeing of my baby. She is now 2 years old and perfectly healthy, oh and she's right handed. I did read about the increase in left handedness and for a while she did look as though she might be left handed but now she has decided to go with her right hand. In saying that though DD1 also showed signs of being left handed as a baby and I only had two scans with her but she's also right handed.

Sorry, my last line in my post sounds quite judgemental. All I mean is that the 20 week scan is important, it's a standard offered one. When I'm living they offer 2 scans, 14 & 20 weeks. 14 is the dating, 20 is the big one. The 14 week one was reassuring, made it real, confirmed dates, showed there was a heartbeat (I'd had some bleeding). The 20 week one was good, confirmed that in all likely hood I was going to have a healthy child.
If your scan was later on, and 'just for the hell of it', given your concerns I'd say to cancel, but the 20 week one is very useful.
Hope this makes a bit more sense!!

with dd1 i had 8 scans in total and so glad I did - the last one picked up the fact my palcenta had packed it in and dd1 was born about an hour later - at first I too felt we had had enough and at 38 weeks it was unnecessary - I soon learnt how necessary.

Having said that - the 20 week scan is very important - that is where they picked up my dd1's heart defect and so we were able to have the support in place for her birth and have the tour of special care etc - make the contacts with the specialist cardiologists - all things that would have added to the stress of having a newborn rushed to ICU.

With dd I had scans at : 6,8,10,12,16,28 & 21 weeks followed by a 3d/4d scan at 28 weeks. I had mc before so wanted reassurance. All seems fine with her, currently 16 months. TBH I don't think there is enough evidence to say if it's a good/bad thing. If I was concerned tbh I would only have scans when necessary.

I'm currently 21 weeks and so far have had scans at 9,12,20 weeks and due a 3d/4d scan at 28 weeks.

Ok this is purely anecdotal (sp?) but with ds2 I had 38 scans !

And he is now a healthy almost-4 year old. Not sure about the left handed thing just yet.

Talk to your dr and/or midwife if you are concerned, hth

Can I just through in that they used to feel it's fine to X-ray pg women and didn't htink noubt of i, and that is not so far in the past really!
Also...sorry....I ahve had m/c's too...but tbh.....no matter how many or few scans you have...it ain't gonna make no difference, and if anything else is well...why assume there is a problem?

3andnomore..for me it was called reasurrance.

All personal choice.

Thanks, all. I personally agree with 3andmore. If things are going fine and I feel fine, and specially coz scans do not provide with any direct evdience of defects but only indicate possibilties (often not confirmed) shouldnt be quite natural not to go for scans? Yet many people, specially doctors find it strange and think I am being rather eccentric. In other counries, as Netherlands, for example, they only allow one scan per pregnancy! Surely, the scare of scans is purely anecdotal but who wants to risk?

LaRuse - my scan picked up my daughter's heart defect - very clearly. We knew exactly whqta heart defect she had and after a fetal cardiac scan - like a scan but focusing on the baby's heart ( in utero) doing all sorts of things like colouring the blood/chambers etc - we knew exactly what was going on so it really isn't correct to say theyd o not provide any direct evidence of defects.

Also at 38 weeks - we could see she had not grown and then doing a doppler scan showed that my placenta had packed it in and that she was not getting any 'food' as such. Again - shown very clearly on an ultrasound!!

I avoided all scans in my pregnancy (now 39 weeks), but the doctor insisted I have one at 35 weeks ,and I want to give birth in that particular place so thats why I went along with it.
The fact is that NOBODY KNOWS the long-term effects on the brain, and the fact that studies have shown that ultrasound significantly affects the brains of mice.
Left-handedness is not the point- of course nobody cares if their child is left handed or not. The point is that ultrasound can have such an effect on the brain that it means children who would have been born right-handed, are actually being born left-handed instead. I read studies that show that people who are brain damaged later in life for some reason, can become left-handed.
I truly believe that ultrasound can increase stress levels for mums during pregnancy, rather than be reassuring. Isnt a certain part of becoming a parent to admit that everything is not going to be under our control, no matter how many scans we have? I know women who have been scanned weekly (here in Japan), and it hasnt stopped them having babies born with unexpected problems.
In fact, to some extent, they were falsely reassured by normal scans that everything was going to be fine.

Other studies show that regular scans may actually CAUSE IUGR (where the baby stops growing properly in the womb). One study I read(sorry I dont have the link, but its on google somewhere- a scandinavian study)looked at a couple of thousand women who were scanned a lot in pregnancy and another 2000 or so who werent. The scanned group had a one third (!) increase in the case of IUGR! Thats not a small figure, and its shocking that scans might acutally be causing the problems that they are supposed to diagnose.

There are too many ifs and buts for me to be happy with, and bascially I dont think they are all they are cut out to be. Its got its place in medical diagnosis, for example if a woman starts bleeding unexpectedy. But Im not sure if they should be routine for every pregnancy, and definitely not be considered as 100% safe(like x-rays were years ago)

I stand by the scans I had with dd.
The first - I'd been bleeding at 11 weeks, had to wait til 14 week scan to ensure I was still carrying a live baby - it does not matter how many people who tell you they bled through pregnancy and had healthy children, I wanted reassurance and that came in the form of a scan.
The 20 week scan - we'd rejected any "invasive" procedures to identify anything like Down's, just opted for the "soft markers" approcah during the larger scan.
My other scans (cant remember how many, less than 4) were based on problems. DD had stopped moving, the trace machine picked up very limited movements so they scanned to ensure placenta was okay etc. Same again with the next one due to loss of movement (for about two days) where they measured the blood flow in the cord.
I ended up with a "planned section" for various reasons, one being that she was breech. I had a scan about an hour before the op to ensure she hadn't moved (she hadn't) but the reason it had to be a scan was because 5 people had felt me saying she was head down and she wasn't (obv got a very bony arse!)

So what medical procedure is absolutely, incontrovertibly safe? So what part of life is, either? Sometimes you have to make compromises, and IMO you have to weigh up the options: the chance of your baby having a life-threatening condition (or a quality-of-life-threatening condition) - my first child - or the chance of it being physically impossible to deliver your baby vaginally - my second child - against a statistical chance that the child may have a neurological problem in later life. To my mind there's no doubts over the choice. If the scan is medically advisable, then I would have it. If it's just for my curiosity, then I would remain curious.

eidvold, Sakura, Prettycandles and elf1981 - thank you for sharing your thoughts. It is obvious that we all feel strongly about it. I have heard about the research done on mice and brain damaging effect the US has on young mice. I also, I am sorry but that is my personal opinion, do not completely trust the system: if national medical service in other countries find a good reason enough to limit number of scans, even considering that they are advisable here, surely there is a strong reasong enough professionals in countries like Netherlands, Australia and the US not to use such a handy diagnostic tool. In any case ultrasound scan do not improve the outcome of pregnancy. And isnt it too easily used? I asked on risks of the scan and never got a proper answer from my GP except something like 'what is good for all the country is good for you'!

Elf1981, I actually have had 3 scans already as I had some sort of pain (thought was ectopic), then doctor got me back to check if there was a heart beat (should not have agreed to that!) and was bleeding around 11 weeks or so. Now 20 weeks structural check is approaching I hesitate.

I didn't go for any scans at all throughout all four of my pregnancies. I'm not keen on them and I knew that whatever came up in any scan wouldn't change my course anyway.

Good on you, Spidermama - I only wish I was strong enough to do the same. It is my first PG and there have been many unknowns - my only excuse I guess. Did you find it hard though? My husband is very pro-scans :-)

I had to hire independent mws who were 'on my side'. The NHS ones were unnsupportive at the time. I think these days they can be better, frowm what I hear. I loved my indie mws but they are expensive.

Shame, really (not that they are expensive but that you had to feel this way about NHS). I found the GP very unsupportive and rather bullying me into scans.

such a matter of personal choic.

i had about 9 with ds. prior to ds i'd been pg 3 times. the first was ectopic - ruptured fallopian tube, internal bleeding, all very traumatic. so now i am offered (and will always accept) early scans. and will always have a scan if i'm worried for whatever reason. for me it's better than spending my pg in a state of anxiety.

but if i'd never lost a pg i'm sure i'd feel very different and would be concerned about them.

Spidermama - what if the scan showed complete placenta praevia? This would presumably change your plan to have a vaginal birth?

I'm having the two routine scans with my next baby. Here is my experience -

First baby; I was planning a homebirth. The midwife was adamant that the baby was head down, and I knew she hadn't changed position. I saw another midwife who wasn't convinced, and I agreed to a scan at 38 weeks. DD was coming feetfirst. Now, there is a 90% chance that I could have given birth to her at home with no problems. But 90% frankly wasn't high enough for me so I'm glad I had the scan (and the cs).

Second baby; planned a homebirth again. 20-wk scan and consequent 32-wk scan showed I had complete placenta praevia. It wouldn't have made that much difference if I hadn't had them - I'd still have dialed 999 when I haemorrhaged in the middle of the night at 36 weeks. But it would have been one heck of a shock and it was good to be prepared. And not everyone bleeds with pp - I could have gone full-term and gone into labour at home, and the first we would have known was when the placenta started detaching.