Ultrasound Harms the Fetus??

[charmedjenny]

this was posted by Feelin' Feminine today.

 

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/028853_ultrasound_fetus.html

[misslady]

Sigh. I am sure that there is a difference somehow between u/s used for sterilization (is this really a thing?) and for fetal monitoring.

U/s might make you lefthanded, though. Maybe. See here: http://www.healthline.com/blogs/pregnan ... d-and.html

Although as a lefthanded person myself it irks me that that article keeps talking about the "risks" of being lefthanded. Um, ok. I get along just fine, thanks.

[1004srs]

I'm not terribly crunchie, but I have heard that U/S for fun like at the mall or jsut to find out the sex aren't healthy for the fetus.

[bananacat]

So I guess she'll be against the proposed laws that force a pregnant woman to get an ultrasound if she wants an abortion? Oh wait, they don't actually give ultrasounds anyway. CPCs just pretend to and then use fake images from pregnancies that are a lot farther along.

[ladypuglover]

Now, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a project that aims to temporarily sterilize men by blasting their scrotums with ultrasound. The burst of ultrasound energy, it turns out, disrupts the normal biological function of the testes, making the man infertile for six months.

:roll: Well I didn't want my newborn sons getting any baby girls pregnant.

Ultrasound is loud. It no doubt causes tissue disruption and damage in a fetus, and it certainly creates stress and shock for the baby.

that is why when I had 5-7 ultrasounds every week they had to wake my babies up to see all they had to see because my babies were so stressed they had to take a nap. :roll:

Frequent ultrasound scans during pregnancy may result in growth restriction in the womb and the birth of smaller babies, according to a study of almost 3,000 Australian women, writes Liz Hunt.

And my preemie born at 35 weeks weighed almost 6 pounds at birth. If he had gone full term he would have weighed close to 9 pounds! But he couldn't have since he had ultrasounds 5-7 times a week for 30 weeks. :doh:

[Austin]

:roll: Well I didn't want my newborn sons getting any baby girls pregnant.

that is why when I had 5-7 ultrasounds every week they had to wake my babies up to see all they had to see because my babies were so stressed they had to take a nap. :roll:

And my preemie born at 35 weeks weighed almost 6 pounds at birth. If he had gone full term he would have weighed close to 9 pounds! But he couldn't have since he had ultrasounds 5-7 times a week for 30 weeks. :doh:

I had frequent ultrasounds with my twins, too, lpl, and they seem pretty much okay - lol. Maybe JP would be better at math, though - who knows? Apparently, my twins liked to nap a lot, too, as they were "buzzed" a lot during stress tests in the last weeks (for those that don't know, the buzzing is just a little instrument the nurse puts on your abdomen and it just makes a bit of loud noise and wakes the baby up).

And these twins were born at 35 weeks (barely - I turned 35 weeks exactly the day I delivered) and one was 6, 3 and the other was 6, 1. So yeah, they were bigger than many babies who go 38, 39 and 40 weeks.

I don't even know what to say about the first quote. Do men regularly have their manly parts ultrasounded? I've not really heard of that. . .

So according to the fundies, microwaves harm people, ultrasounds harm babies and men's balls and light radiation from Japan is causing dehydration by attaching to the electrolytes in their bodies. Have I missed any other weird or bizarre misunderstandings of science by fundies that we've seen recently here on FJ?

Oh, and my only left-handed child is my eldest with whom I had only one brief ultrasound in the whole 41 week pregnancy. It's not a bad thing, although I have heard that they design powertools for right-handed people so left-handed people need to use them with extra caution. Oh, and the kindergarten scissors never worked for him. . . :D

[misslady]

Oh, and my only left-handed child is my eldest with whom I had only one brief ultrasound in the whole 41 week pregnancy. It's not a bad thing, although I have heard that they design powertools for right-handed people so left-handed people need to use them with extra caution. Oh, and the kindergarten scissors never worked for him. . . :D

Austin, I always got stuck with the left-handed softball gloves in gym class. Dead useless as I'm only left-handed for my fine motor skills - gross motor skills like throwing are all on my right side. I also have no tennis backhand because I was taught to play both left and right handed. But that's not really relevant to the topic :) (I'm good at that.)

[Austin]

Austin, I always got stuck with the left-handed softball gloves in gym class. Dead useless as I'm only left-handed for my fine motor skills - gross motor skills like throwing are all on my right side. I also have no tennis backhand because I was taught to play both left and right handed. But that's not really relevant to the topic :) (I'm good at that.)

My decidedly right-handed husband and another son play tennis, swing golf clubs, and bat left-handed.

[browngrl]

My background: I'm a radiologist and in my earlier medical life I did mostly women's medicine. Currently I do mostly women's imaging and so I read > 40 ultrasounds on any given day.

Ultrasound has been around since about the 1950's. So we have a pretty extensive experience with this imaging modality. There are NO confirmed adverse biologic effects at this time. We can not know if any adverse effect will be proven in the future. So as a group radiologists advise following one of the guiding principles in radiology: the lowest dose possible to achieve a diagnosis or treatment should be used. I use higher energy techniques like Doppler, 3D ultrasound techniques to solve problems and to diagnose - I try and use them wisely and I never use them just to get a "pretty picture" . I believe strongly that ultrasound should only be used for diagnosis or treatment or research. I am greatly concerned about the 3D ultrasound centres they have in malls to give people "keepsake videos" of their baby - this is ultrasound that has NO medical benefit NO medical information is being generated. As there is no medical benefit the risk:benefit ratio is zero. Ultrasound is not a toy. It is a medical test and should be regarded as such.

Hope this helps.

edited to correct typos - it is now after 11:00(can't sleep had too much coffee today) so forgive any typos I missed

[PBrooke]

I've been seeing this lots of places on slightly more crunchy (non-fundie) mommy blogs. Even some of the not-so-crunchy ones, too. I wonder if u/s are the new vaccines.

[Brainsample]

There are some anti-ultrasound activists in natural health, but they are all hippies and not fundie religious, so far as I ever knew. US does bombard the body with sound waves, and I don't know anything about sterilization, but ultrasound at high intensity (nothing like a medical diagnostic test) is used to break up kidney stones as an alternative to surgery.

Like any other medical procedure that any person has, there should be a risk/benefit ratio that must be looked at. I can understand the Luddite women of QF/P declining an ultrasound, and I would think that the earlier in the pregnancy it is, the more the concern for potential risk.

However... there is a risk/benefit ratio. One of the plastic surgeons I worked with once published a paper on in utero repair of cleft palate in fetal mice. The benefit in humans is that if such a condition can be identified and then repaired while the baby is in utero, when they deliver, they can be healed and ready to nurse without complications. In that case, the benefit would outweigh the potential risk.

What I'd be more impressed with is a connection to autism. Do we see that? And who knows --- maybe the US has a beneficial affect on the baby? We don't know without data we can scrutinize. Show me the numbers.

But that said, if you don't have a good reason for doing the testing, why do the testing? Or do it later in the pregnancy. It is a sound wave, and the unborn babe has ears and hears sound. I could see my hippie self arguing to wait late into a pregnancy to do an US.

Don't forget that you're dealing with a fertility cult, and they're always looking for ways to prove that their group is more special to God than everyone else. Pro-life can mean Kid Farm! or no contraception, and refusing ultrasounds could easily become a way to "witness" to your OBGYN and create a drama to prove how pro-life one is. That may be the next big campaign in QF/P.

[Brainsample]

My background: I'm a radiologist and in my earlier medical life I did mostly women's medicine. Currently I do mostly women's imaging and so I read > 40 ultrasounds on any given day.

Ultrasound has been around since about the 1950's. So we have a pretty extensive experience with this imaging modality. There are NO confirmed adverse biologic effects at this time. We can not know if any adverse effect will be proven in the future. So as a group radiologists advise following one of the guiding principles in radiology: the lowest dose possible to achieve a diagnosis or treatment should be used. I use higher energy techniques like Doppler, 3D ultrasound techniques to solve problems and to diagnose - I try and use them wisely and I never use them just to get a "pretty picture" . I believe strongly that ultrasound should only be used for diagnosis or treatment or research. I am greatly concerned about the 3D ultrasound centres they have in malls to give people "keepsake videos" of their baby - this is ultrasound that has NO medical benefit NO medical information is being generated. As there is no medical benefit the risk:benefit ratio is zero. Ultrasound is not a toy. It is a medical test and should be regarded as such.

Hope this helps.

edited to correct typos - it is now after 11:00(can't sleep had too much coffee today) so forgive any typos I missed

Hey browngrl,

Somehow I missed this, but nice for validation. ;)

All medical intervention is intervention -- and there are risks with all intervention. People forget that.

[lipstickgoalie]

But what does it do to your elctrolytes?

[Wolfie]

Austin, I always got stuck with the left-handed softball gloves in gym class. Dead useless as I'm only left-handed for my fine motor skills - gross motor skills like throwing are all on my right side. I also have no tennis backhand because I was taught to play both left and right handed. But that's not really relevant to the topic :) (I'm good at that.)

I switch back and forth- and it's really odd for others because it's not fine/gross motor. It's seriously random. And I'll eat with either hand. (I think the only reason I write with my right hand is because that's what I saw people doing, apparently before I was taught, I'd use whatever hand to color. My parents were careful to not try and make me right handed, because my grandma was a true leftie and had issues because they tried to change her dominance. Her mother was ambidexterous, so I'm probably more like her.)

[valsa]

I can only write left-handed (unless I want to write something that looks like it's from a 4 year old)

However, I use a fork with my right hand, use scizzors with my right, bat right-handed, pitch right-handed, and even give injections right-handed (student nurse)

It's cool to know I'm not the only lefty who is weird like that.

[libmomj]

Brainsample:

Don't forget that you're dealing with a fertility cult, and they're always looking for ways to prove that their group is more special to God than everyone else. Pro-life can mean Kid Farm! or no contraception, and refusing ultrasounds could easily become a way to "witness" to your OBGYN and create a drama to prove how pro-life one is. That may be the next big campaign in QF/P.

Haven't posted in a while, mostly lurking lately but...yeah, THIS.

[Deleted03]

Most birth centers with midwives that I know of (in Québec) restrict U/S or even do not advise for one during pregnancy. I asked a friend who had two girls with midwives and had 0 U/S and she said that they know more stuff by touching the baby than OBs, and if something is wrong they'll know it or suspect it based on this exam or on blood works. I am not saying I'm endorsing what she says. However, I know I try myself to limit radiation exposure and I am very bothered that to go to a dentist they absolutely want me to get an X-Ray to be a new client.

And my mom smoked and drank coffee all while she was pregnant and I was born at an average weight, on time. :P Risks are always risks for some people. It rarely means that 100% of the person affected will get the exact same symptoms, or symptoms at all. And at the very least I agree with browngirl that medical procedures should be limited to medical needs. ^^

[valsa]

However, I know I try myself to limit radiation exposure and I am very bothered that to go to a dentist they absolutely want me to get an X-Ray to be a new client.

Perhaps I'm just confused by the wording but ultrasounds aren't done with radiation.

Also, there are things that can be seen on an ultrasound that cannot be detected by feel or blood work. Heart defects are one. Neural tube defects and Downs Syndrome can be detected by other testing but I don't believe that testing includes simple blood tests (more likely they would be amnios, which are far more risky) Ultrasound can also detect early in utero death and ectopic pregnancies. If it weren't for a routine ultrasound, my mother's ectopic pregnancy might not have been discovered.

[clibbyjo]

I had a bunch of ultrasounds with my first because he was thought to have a "2 vessel cord".(which was wrong, forced me to have stress tests every week and major stress for 3 months). Anyway, he is 15 now,above normal intelligence (other than his aversion to doing his chores without being told 1 million times, he has a problem there. :mrgreen: ) so I have not seen any problems in areas of development.

[browngrl]

Perhaps I'm just confused by the wording but ultrasounds aren't done with radiation.

Also, there are things that can be seen on an ultrasound that cannot be detected by feel or blood work. Heart defects are one. Neural tube defects and Downs Syndrome can be detected by other testing but I don't believe that testing includes simple blood tests (more likely they would be amnios, which are far more risky) Ultrasound can also detect early in utero death and ectopic pregnancies. If it weren't for a routine ultrasound, my mother's ectopic pregnancy might not have been discovered.

you are quite right- ultrasound is not done with xrays and ultrasound can detect things that are impossible to diagnose with a physical exam

edited because apparently a good night of sleep did not help my spelling

[Mommy22alyns]

Perhaps I'm just confused by the wording but ultrasounds aren't done with radiation.

Also, there are things that can be seen on an ultrasound that cannot be detected by feel or blood work. Heart defects are one. Neural tube defects and Downs Syndrome can be detected by other testing but I don't believe that testing includes simple blood tests (more likely they would be amnios, which are far more risky) Ultrasound can also detect early in utero death and ectopic pregnancies. If it weren't for a routine ultrasound, my mother's ectopic pregnancy might not have been discovered.

Yes, exactly. Things like placenta previa too. If I hadn't had a routine ultrasound with my second daughter, we'd both be dead now. It makes me pissy when people demonize ultrasounds.

[browngrl]

I think the thing that bothers me the most about those who demonize things like ultrasound is the strong misogynist undertone. You would never hear of anyone criticizing a man for having a potentially critical test but with women it seems that everything must be scrutinized. Don't even get me started on people who criticize women for using something for pain control during labour. You would never hear a man criticized for using pain control to manage pain, but all sorts of men and women feel the need to criticize women who use an epidural or some other form of pain control during labour.

[FakePigtails]

I think some people just have to have something to be afraid of and/or demonize. Unfortunately modern medical advances have tended to be a good target. [insert lecture about the importance of scientific literacy]. The armchair psychologist in me thinks it's a sort of control issue, like an attempt to feel control over something, anything, even if it's in reality an innocuous thing.

[Childless]

Ugh. I hate it when people criticize a woman on her birth choices. So what if she has an epidural/ultrasound/c-section/etc. So long as both she and the baby are healthy, that's all that matters. People need to mind their own business.