Ultrasounds and pregnancy… too much of a good thing?
There is no doubt that over the last few generations, vast amounts of research has been done in the area of obstetrics; modern medicine seems to be able to work miracles when it comes to the care and safety of high-risk mothers and babies, both during and after pregnancy. Babies born 3 months early have a 60% – 90% survival rate, whereas they would most certainly die without modern medical intervention. Because of these improved fetal and maternal survival rates, it seems that it is not politically correct to question whether we may be intervening too much in the world of obstetrics. Just because we have the technology for prenatal intervention, should we really be using it on every pregnant woman in the country?
One example is the overuse of ultrasound during pregnancy. There is no doubt that ultrasound can be a useful diagnostic tool during pregnancy. It can alert a doctor to potential complications, such as placenta previa. It can also be used to determine if the baby has birth defects, which some parents may want to know before the baby is born. However, do we really need to know the exact age of the fetus? Do we really need to know the baby’s gender? Do we really need to have 5 pictures of the baby in the baby book before he’s born? Do we really need a DVD of our baby in utero? I know lots of women who have taken extreme caution during pregnancy to do everything right. They drank lots of water, avoided soft cheese, didn’t drink alcohol, passed on the sushi, and left the skis in the garage all winter. But they thought nothing of having 5 or 6 ultrasounds during the pregnancy. In each case, the ultrasound machine would bounce high-frequency sound waves off their babies for up to 40 minutes at a time. Some women have told me that they loved seeing the ultrasounds so much that they wished they could have one every week!
I am in no way diminishing the importance of ultrasound as a diagnostic tool. I just think that we’ve gotten a little carried away with it. It’s not a toy, and should not be used as such. Even if there’s only a tiny chance that excessive ultrasounds could be detrimental to a developing fetus, is it really a chance that we need to be taking?
I guess this is part of the emerging trend of “Health Care Bling”?
This trend is so new that it didn’t even exist when my daughter was born (she’s 26).
The only reason I had an ultra sound (very blobby, blurry photos) was for fetal age with my son 22 years ago – and that was silly because my dates were immpeccable (let’s put it this way – hubby was in law school so not only did I have my LMP date, I had the date of conception! Law school: 90% reliable birth control…LOL!)
By the time my 3rd one came around (16 years ago), I only had one sonogram and that was, again to check position and dates at 35 weeks. I was more relieved to find out that she had four heart chambers and a brain than to know whether she was a girl or boy.
My OB told me back when I was pregnant and expecting my son and checking a doppler heartbeat every day at work, to not do that very often, as the effect of ultrasound on the developing fetus was not well studied or documented at that time. I guess she was ahead of her time two decades ago.
And no, it’s not a chance that needs to be taken. Maybe one ultrasound to rule/out any heart defect that can be taken care of in utero or to know if the delivery will be high risk. Just to know the sex or to have baby pics – no.
Im currently pregnant for the second time. My first baby was stillborn at 33weeks.
Im always worried about this happening to me again. Im diabetic. Having multiple ultrasounds gives me comfort, just being able to see my child. I think that every situation is different.
Sep 19th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
[...] Tundra Medicine Dreams has posted the most beautiful Grand Rounds I’ve ever seen. It’s a great collection of healthcare related blog posts and includes Louise’s article on ultrasounds. [...]