High Risk pregnancy and scanning

[Kate126]

I am a 'High Risk' Pregnancy as have Anti Phospholipid Syndrome (diagnosed after 2 miscarriages), and a connective tissue disorder (mild). I am on LMWH, Aspirin, Hydroxychlorquine. I'm 37, and haven't had any children. I've been told i will need extra growth scans (28,32 and 36 weeks) as well as weekly CTG montioring from 28 weeks (whcih will involve 20 mins a pop of USS Doppler).

I have done a fair bit of reading on the safety of utrasound scanning and feel very uncomfortable with having this amount of scanning done. There seems to be increasing amounts of research which casts siginificant doubt on the safety of scanning (partiuclary with the advent of scanners which are higher powered (up to x8) than those originally used in the 80's/90's. THe concern really is the impact that it may have on the fetal brain.

I'm a medical doctor, and well aware of the imprtant role that scanning etc has, however i cannot help but feel uncomfortable with this degree of exposure. I am also not convinced that it would ultimately lead to a change in the outcome (knowing that the vast majority of babies are better in than out, esp before 32/34 weeks).

I wondered what folks experience was of being 'high risk' and getting this amount of mointoring, and whetehr anyone actually declined some scans/CTG's that were for purely monitoring purposes.

Any thoughts/experiences appreciated!

I don’t have any medical knowledge or qualification, I am classed as high risk due to the combined factors of my age [40] and the fact I was IVF, otherwise futv&!heakthy and had a fairly textbook pg so far [due date this Sunday].

I dud get the extra scans & being honest didn’t give it a second thought in terms of risk factors - perhaps sometimes it’s wirse to be too informed if that makes sense?

The three additional later scans are very quick [over in a couple of minutes tops] as they are literally checking for specific changes, in my case it was measurements, and I found them incredibly reassuring.

I don’t know if that helps but I’d suggest you have a good chat with your consultant about your concerns, midwives tend to be quite dismissive but the consultants ime are better placed to have conversations like this.

Good luck!

Scuse typos I pressed post before I could check