Ultrasound safety

[lomelindi17]

Hello!

I'm newly pregnant and kinda crunchy and plan on doing everything as naturally as possible, since I believe Mother Nature has it all figured out pretty well. Pretty sure we will be using a freestanding birth center with a Naturopathic midwife (ND & CPM) as it is our first child. I haven't met her yet but I'm sure she is on the same page, but I want to do my own research anyway to be informed. I'm really skeptical of the safety of a lot of the common tests and scans done on pregnant women and things done to newborns (gd test, vitamin k shot, early vaccines, antibiotics, etc), and am researching about ultrasounds right now. There are a few articles, especially one by Dr. Sarah Buckley, about the questionable safety of ultrasounds, pointing to research done on animals that showed pretty drastic harm.

My question is, has anyone here gone the whole pregnancy without an ultrasound? Or just one? It seems so rare now even though only a few decades ago no one had the luxury of seeing the baby before birth. I feel like a lot of women on this forum get scans very frequently and I was just wondering if there were others like me who were more cautious about it. I will discuss it with my midwife when I finally see her, but I was just curious what some other opinions and experiences were here. The most I will want is to have one scan, though I'm not sure when that would be to be most useful and least harmful. Thoughts?

 

[MrsG09]

I've had the same, or at least similar, thoughts on ultrasound. I've spent a lot of time reading the book Expecting Better, and there is a chapter in there on ultrasound research. The book has been great in that it provides all the research she found, she analyzes it, and then provides the results, but still encourages the reader to make their own informed decision. Anyways, it encouraged me to hold my ground, which honestly hasn't been difficult to do working with a midwife. We will be getting one ultrasound done at 19 weeks (next week!). I had a scare early on in which my midwife offered to send me over to the hospital for a scan, but she did say it really will only provide me with reassurance or confirmation on how things are progressing. Instead, I just opted for checking hsg levels. So the one coming up we plan to have be our only one. I feel as though anything else might be only for my benefit. If they were to find something alarming that my midwife feels should be viewed further, then I imagine we will consider more, but only if they were to feel it's absolutely necessary.

 

[lomelindi17]

Thanks for the reply! I agree it seems like the use of U/S now is more about peace of mind for the parents than being able to help the baby much. Was there a specific reason to get your U/S at 19 weeks?

 

[VerbingNoun]

I had 4
First was to confirm pregnancy. Second one was an emergency ultrasound because they couldn't confirm the first one (thought it was ectopic.)
After that, the only ultrasounds I had were for California Prenatal Screening Program or whatever.

If I requested no screening and wouldn't have had that emergency, I could have only done one. My hospital of choice seems to otherwise not send women to u/s. Pretty sure they only require the confirmation one for insurance reasons and you can always deny prenatal screening.

 

[Button#]

In the UK they do 2 scans as standard, one at 12 weeks and one at 20 weeks. The 12 week scan is to date the pregnancy and also to screen for risks of Down's syndrome and a couple of other chromosome abnormalities. The 20 week one is a longer scan which checks the heart, kidneys, stomach etc. I would say if you only go for one to go for the 20 week as they can identify problems that might require special care after birth.

I've had 5 scans this time, one for reassurance for bleeding (had a previous miscarriage so I needed that reassurance) one at 12 weeks then my 20 week one needed to be repeated as she was in a bad position and they couldn't see her heart. I had a low placenta at my 20 week scan so they needed to rescan at 34 weeks to check the exit was clear.

 

[NDH]

I know many women who have opted for no scans, or just one. Of those who choose just one scan most seem to opt for the anatomy scan at 20 weeks, but some prefer a 34-36 weeks to check placenta location.

I had been planning on no ultrasounds this pregnancy (I had only wanted to during my second pregnancy but hadn't one any research as to the safety of them and ended up ith more than a dozen by the end...). But after a couple of losses in a row I'm feeling a bit anxious for a scan around the 12 week mark just to verify there's a growing baby and not another mmc. We'll see though. The closer I get to 12 weeks I'm starting to feel it less necessary to verify all is well.

 

[Feronia]

I have the same concerns about everything you mentioned. On my first pregnancy, I only had one scan at 20 weeks, and on my second pregnancy I decided to skip even that one. I did have one at 6 weeks since I was bleeding heavily and thought I had miscarried, but otherwise I would have had zero. I decided to avoid all elective scans (which include the anatomy scan around 20 weeks) and only do one if it was medically indicated. It never was, so I had zero scans from 6 weeks onwards.

I also skipped the GBS test, vitamin K, eye drops, the GD test, vaccines, etc. Baby boy was born perfectly healthy at home 4 weeks ago. It was nice having a low-intervention pregnancy.

My midwife was able to hear the heartbeat at 17 weeks with a fetoscope, determine the placenta's location later on with the fetoscope, palpate for the amount of amniotic fluid, and palpate the baby's location precisely -- so I saw no need for an ultrasound, especially since after the bleeding episode, nothing came up during pregnancy that warranted a scan.

 

[MrsG09]

Sorry lomelindi, I missed that you had replied. Like Button said, primarily so that if there's anything that might indicate immediate care after birth, so that we can be prepared for that. As for 19 weeks, that's just when my once a month appointment happened to fall, so it will actually be for the 20 week anatomy scan...just a week early.

Feronia, I didn't realize they could check all of those things via fetoscope and palpating. Really good to know! Thinking about it, that really does make sense that all of that is possible with such simple procedures.

 

[HopefulEm]

I went the whole pregnancy with none!

No ultrasound, no doppler. Not everyone seems to realize the doppler is ultrasound, but it's a stronger version at that. It does seem very rare for pregnant women to go this route these days. Women are just not being informed that there is a risk, which is quite bothersome to me. We all have a right to make our own informed decision.

My husband and I had a really long think about it at the beginning of my pregnancy after I had done a lot of research. It was tough saying no to a way to see the baby, especially in the early weeks when there was no other way to really tell that she was in there, but it didn't feel worth the risk to us.

One thing to think about - when I was labouring at the birth centre they really wanted to continually check the heart beat to make sure things were ok. I said no to the doppler, so they found someone who could use a fetoscope, but for the next one I don't want them to do that either. A fetoscope works fine for regular checkups during pregnancy, but being in labour it was just painful and disruptive. I trust my body to give birth in the best way when it's left alone to follow instincts.

Oh, and the other thing I learned the hard way - don't tell the women in any of the various trimester forums on baby and bump about wanting to not do ultrasounds. It's a very touchy subject. >_<

 

[Feronia]

HopefulEm, good points about maybe needing to be quiet about it -- I got into a few arguments about my reasons for avoiding ultrasounds.

I forgot to mention dopplers as well. I avoided them throughout my pregnancy but when I was in labour, I did allow my midwife to use one a few times when I was in the second stage. I know I could have declined, but I was okay with it at that point since I wanted to know whether to stop pushing and give the baby time to get more oxygen (if needed; it wasn't) and didn't want to change positions for the fetoscope.

 

[VerbingNoun]

Oh, and the other thing I learned the hard way - don't tell the women in any of the various trimester forums on baby and bump about wanting to not do ultrasounds. It's a very touchy subject. >_<

Yeah I think thats with most places. If they still did an amniocentesis, I would have declined and only gotten the first ultrasound done.
And that one was done simply so insurance would cover the rest of the appointments. Can't blame them for not wanting to cover appointments when pregnancy hasn't been officially verified though.

We got a whole sheet on risks associated with prenatal screening (which was the only non-emergency/verification time I got them done.) We got a whole sheet on all risks with everything they did. Not sure if every hospital does it but I know in some cases, people get the paperwork and just never read it

 

[Srrme]

My husband and I have been more cautious this pregnancy. We've had 1 ultrasound, but it was quick and it was only to make sure she was measuring okay, growing well, and her heart was working properly. We only opted for it since we're planning a home birth, otherwise we might have skipped them all together.

 

[lomelindi17]

HopefulEm great point about not mentioning it around the forums, that's why I posted it in the natural birth section because I figured there were more like-minded women here. I feel like a bit of a minority in the other areas

Thanks everyone for your input, I didn't know they could do all those things manually without an ultrasound so that was helpful! I got my beta levels checked and they are really high, so hubby and I want to get the screening for downs just in case, also in case it's twins, hopefully they can do everything in one scan.
I am concerned as well that they don't warn people about the risks of ultrasounds, there are lot of things they don't warn about lol.. *sigh* ;-)

 

[HopefulEm]

VerbingNoun, glad to hear they're trying to inform about ultrasounds somewhere at least. Hopefully the trend will spread.

 

[Rachel89]

This thread is exactly what I needed. We are opting for 2 ultrasounds this time(12 weeks and 20 weeks), which is more than some of you guys might be comfortable with. But it is a lot less than what we had during pregnancy number one. The uncertainty is killing me, but it is best for baby!

I have never received any information regarding the risks of ultrasounds wow!

 

[BunnyN]

I have mixed feelings on this one. I was a bit wary of ultrasounds and did loads of research about it. I decided I was okay with doing two.

We actually ended up with more my first pregnancy because the first one showed bleeding behind the placenta. I was recomended to take 6 weeks house rest. If that helped it might have saved her life, or maybe it would have been fine anyway and it just gave us a load of stress and worry and inconvenience that we didnt have to go through. It also showed I had a low placenta which later moved up. Second pregnancy I wanted to rule out any problems with bleeding again. Evey thing was fine.

I also felt more comfortable with an US because of having a home births to rule out things like placenta previa. I believe in practice they are pretty safe but there is pretty clear evidence that they can be unsafe when used at high levels for example.