feeling faint & sick during scan? any ideas?

[Rebecca1608]

So I'm 27 weeks tomorrow and as I'm expecting identical twins I get scanned fortnightly. All of my scans have gone well so far but today even though it only lasted 10-15 mins, I felt like I was actually going to faint. By the time I'd sat up I could feel the colour drain from me and I started sweating and afterwards I felt sick. I didn't have time to hang around and ask the sonographer as I had a consultant appointment straight after & had too many questions to ask to bring that up. I am gonna keep getting scanned fortnightly and I don't want this to happen again.

I had something similar in my last scan, and the midwife suggested I roll onto my left hand side to take the weight off my bump off basically. I've read about lying on your back cutting off the blood to your vagus nerve which can restrict your blood flow and cause you to feel faint. Try rolling over and see if you feel better?

Agree, when I was in hospital for monitoring I was the same and had to lie on my side. It's normal, if not very nice.

Aaah thanks. Just thought it was odd as I'd never had that before. I'll try that next time!

Yes this happened to me with my twin pregnancy, in the later stages. It is to do with the weight of everything pressing on something important (sorry cant remember the technical details!). The people scanning should be aware of this - if it happens again, tell them.

Will do thanks. I'm glad it's not just me then. I'll try and lye in a different position too.

A friend and I were discussing this because she struggles to lie on her back without feeling like you do (we're both twin pregnancies). The advice is to limit the time spent lying on your back (because of the weight of baby/bump compressing the aorta-main artery in your body) except it seems when it comes to having a scan when you're just meant to lie there. I struggle on my back due to SPD and the sonographer hasn't been keen to allow me to even shove a pillow under one hip as it seems to affect their view. Saying that at my 32 week scan last week she made me move right onto my side (both sides) to get a better picture so you might find as you go on you get asked to move anyway.
Good luck. You're not alone.

That's the other thing, I struggle with SPD too and have been referred to a physio so hopefully my next few scans go more smoothly and I'll actually let her know next time if it happens again. Thanks for the replies