Introduction

When I was pregnant with our first child, I knew immediately that I did not want any ultrasound scans at all. Instinctively, I felt that they were wrong somehow.

It simply did not feel right to impose on our baby's privacy and seclusion in my womb. Privacy aside there was this little nagging feeling that babies were aware of the ultrasound scan and that it interfered with proper fetal growth and development.

Later on, I came to see how ultrasounds were the tool of the caregiver that believed in pregnancy and birth 'management', and that they could be used to come up with more opportunities to manage pregnancies and births. Now I abhor the thought of ultrasounds. They are invasive on the baby, the pregnancy and the mother's trust in her body and pregnancy.

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Ultrasound Risks: Research

Pregnant in 2002, I was hard pressed to find information on the potential risks of prenatal ultrasound / sonography. I was lucky to come across an article in New Scientist on ultrasound and fetal brain development, published December 2001 and a website with references to ultrasound research/dangers, taken from a book called "Obstetric Myths vs. Research Realities by Henci Goer. Of course I bought the book! This was enough evidence I needed to stick by my convictions until further research could be done.

Now, in 2004, when doing a Google search for "dangers of ultrasound", it is amazing what turns up. There is a lot more information and recent research on this now!

I would like to include information given by Dr Sarah Buckley, a childbirth author and GP in Brisbane, Australia. She has published an extremely informative paper, "Ultrasound scans: A cause for concern" which now appears in several journals, and is definitely worth the read.

The Impact on the Baby:

The energy produced by sonography / ultra-sound waves does have an impact on the developing baby and the amniotic fluid inside the womb. The energy increases the temperature inside the womb and in the tissues of the developing baby, and also leads to bubbles forming inside.

"It's common knowledge among doctors," he says, that "fetuses responded to ultrasound by increasing their movement." Curious about why that could be, Fatemi decided to find out if the fetus could be responding to auditory stimulation. After confirming statistically that fetuses do move more vigorously during ultrasound scans, Fatemi conducted a preliminary study where he put a tiny microphone into a tank of water to find out what it sounds like when ultrasound signals pass through. Based on the noises he recorded, researchers next repeated the experiment with a tiny microphone implanted in a woman's uterus "There are some differences between that tank of water and the maternal abdomen," Fatemi says, but in both cases, ultrasound waves travelling through liquid produced similar sounds by vibrating the microphone components. The sounds he recorded were enough to convince him that the ultrasound vibrations could translate into noises that are audible to the fetus.

There's just one problem with that conclusion. By definition, ultrasound is sound that lies beyond the range of human hearing. So how can fetuses hear it? As it turns out, fetuses don't hear ultrasound on its own, but its interaction with bone and other tissue. When ultrasound hits bone, Fatemi says, it can produce vibrations in a fetus's sensitive hearing structure. A similar phenomenon occurs when you tap your finger close to your ear. The sound seems loud to you because of the vibrations produced in your ear, Fatemi says, but no one else in the room would be able to hear the sound. Based on his experiments, Fatemi concluded that ultrasound vibrations sound like the high tones of a piano, at about the same volume as an approaching subway train.

Common knowledge among doctors huh? And if the bone and tissue of the fetus vibrates with the ultrasound, obviously this would have some sort of effect on the normal physiological development of a fetus.

More research needs to be done on prenatal ultrasound and the effects it has on fetal development, but it has been slow and still is slow, in coming. No one wants to even consider that there are possible risks of ultrasound especially after years of being told that it was safe and risk-free.

Inaccuracy of Ultrasound:

Ultrasounds are also not always accurate and are well known to produce incorrect "estimated due dates", incorrect estimates of fetal weight, growth, sex, head circumference, pelvic size and so on.

They give the health professional the opportunity to pressure the mother for more tests (more money for them) or invasive and dangerous procedures like induction, caesareans, stripping of membranes, etc.

The reasons for doing so vary widely from "the baby is too big" or "your pelvis is too small" or "your baby is overdue according to OUR estimated due date".

All information that they think they have gathered from the ultrasound, they will use to manage pregnancies,labours and births when it would be better to leave well enough alone! The great volume of this information is for the most part, completely useless and unwarranted according to evidence based research.

My first and last experiences in my first pregnancy:

Sadly, I received two ultrasound scans during my first pregnancy. Once due to an extremely rude, arrogant doctor who would not listen - I had to forcibly remove his hand and the scanner from my belly a few seconds after he attempted to do a scan during a checkup.

The other time was an ultrasound scan of my kidneys, which I would not have consented to if it were not for the huge pressure I was under at the time. I also received perhaps 2 or 3 Doppler checks during my pregnancy - out of ignorance (if I had known what I do now, I would have declined and used the fetoscope all the time) - and also a couple times during the birthing of our first child.

I was also told by friends and medical professionals to "not be silly, the baby can't feel or hear the ultrasound" but personal experience tells me this is a load of bull.

Of course my child was aware of the two ultrasounds that I received during my pregnancy. I know this because of the frantic movement, unusual for my child, over to the other side of my belly at the second ultrasound scan, as far away from the ultrasound scan that she could get. She twisted, turned, kicked and squirmed violently and I could feel her displeasure, discomfort and fear.

I did my best to calm her but it took about an hour or so afterwards before she returned to her peaceful state.... in a breech position that should of been impossible for her to get into considering how deep down in my pelvis she was at the time of that ultrasound scan.