Chest X Ray 31 weeks pregnant - HELP!

[Soontobemummy9]

Hello,

I have had the worst week of my life.
I’ve just had a chest x ray as they are worried I may have a blood clot in my lung due to a high heart rate.
im so worried about the damage it could cause my baby.
I really didn’t want the scan but I understand it’s needed to rule anything out.
has anyone else had a chest x ray while pregnant?!

Back in the day before ultrasound that's how my mum found out she was having twins lol
They will cover belly with lead to minimise radiation you will be fine

Didn't they give you a heavy blanket or apron to protect your belly? That's what they do in my country, I think it contains lead to stop the rays getting to the child.

The amount of radiation from a chest X-ray is tiny - if you’d been on a long haul babymoon you’d get five times as much radiation from the flight as from an X-ray, if that helps put it into context.

It's very minimal radiation. It's the amount of radiation you'd get in a couple of weeks of normal life.

A chest xray will give you the same dose of radiation as three days worth of natural background radiation, that is the radiation we get all the time from rocks (hello Cornwall, with your high dose of radon and the like) and other sources.
The risk to the baby and you is negligible when compared to the benefit of diagnosing and treating an illness which has the potential to kill you both.
Have a chat with the radiographer when you're there and they can explain it to you as well.

Thank you everyone for replying, I didn’t wear an apron when I had the x ray.
I just feel really scared about the risks which I understand are minimal. It’s just not nice when you want to protect your baby from as much as possible.

I'm 39 weeks now and had a chest x-ray & CT with contrast at 24 weeks. All seems fine. The risk of having a pulmonary embolism and not treating it is much worse than the risk of the x-ray