[Lav]

Hello Ladies,

haven't been on here for a while. I've been busy, and also still been dealing with my m/c.

But I have something I really want to share with you and see what you think.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a business party and one of my co-workers came with her baby born in Jan or Feb - can't remember. She told me she had also miscarried, twice in fact, before having a healthy pregnancy. She also said that she had the fetus/tissue tested but no genetical problems had been found.
She'd had an ultrasound done in her first pregnancy at eight weeks and in her second pregnancy at nine weeks because she'd been spotting and was worried. Since they found nothing genetically wrong with her dead fetus, she figured the ultrasounds hurt her baby. She then refused to do an ultrasound until she was 36 weeks, when she finally got pregnant again after almost giving up.

She said to me that the ultrasounds, especially at this early stage in the pregnancy, are very harmful to the fetus.

I had my ultrasound done (because I'd been spotting and was worried) at about 8 weeks - the baby was healthy, had a good strong heartbeat. About one week later I miscarried.

After hearing this from her, I researched a bit on the internet and found various sites with varied opinions. One of the sites (the olive parent - TheOliveParent) had this article (please tell me what you think about this topic):

Ultrasound, Strong Enough to Kill Sperm. Can it Harm a Fetus?

The NaturalNews.com reports that Bill Gates has founded new technology using ultrasound to destroy sperm in men as a temporary form of birth control (6 months). Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com, also known as the Health Ranger, has posed a very valid question and point that should give parents having normal & healthy pregnancies serious pause...."If ultrasound destroys sperm, why is it safe for a fetus?"

His article is strongly worded as is the tone of the article. He calls "yuppie" parents "conceited" for getting an (recreational) ultrasound just to see or get a picture of the fetus. While I understand his frustrations, I can't say I agree with his the tone or focus on parents.

We have raised a generation of parents to trust that doctors and the medical community have our best interest at heart. Of all of the ultrasounds I have been appointed, not once were the risks explained to me. The procedure of HOW a ultrasound works was never explained to me, verbally or by a fact sheet. The only thing I was told was that it was "routine". It wasn't until I did my own research that I understood the condition that the fetus was exposed to by an ultrasound. (Heat and sound)While I am proud to say I have not had an ultrasound since my 4th (healthy) pregnancy (currently in 7th pregnancy), "routine" ultrasound combined with a hush-hush practice of doctors and technicians alike promote a deception amongst patients that ultrasounds are risk free and harmless to the fetus.I was shocked to have found out otherwise.
You can read the full article below or @.... NaturalNews.com

-------------------start of article----------------------------

(NaturalNews) Ultrasound is extremely damaging to the health of any unborn child (fetus). The natural health community has been warning about ultrasound for years, but mainstream medicine, which consistently fails to recognize the harm it causes, insists ultrasound is perfectly safe and can't possibly harm the health of a fetus.

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 .Ultrasound, in other words, contains enough energy to temporarily deaden the testes and basically destroy sperm function for half a year. So why is it considered "safe" to blast an unborn baby with the same frequencies?Ultrasound is loud . It no doubt causes tissue disruption and damage in a fetus, and it certainly creates stress and shock for the baby. And yet conceited yuppie parents just can't get enough of it! They want to SEE a picture of their little baby before it's even born, so they subject it to tissue damage and ultrasound trauma in order to get a snapshot they can show off to their yuppie friends. Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to medically necessary ultrasound that has a reasonable justification concerning the health of the mother of the baby. What I'm strongly opposed to is ultrasound used to take pictures of the fetus or to satisfy the curiosity of the parents. This "recreational" ultrasound is extremely selfish, conceited and may pose a very real danger to the
health of the baby.It's so American, isn't it? Damage the baby so we can get a snapshot to post on Facebook. What a way to welcome a baby into the world: Blast it with piercing high-frequency energy in order to impress your friends! Don't forget to vaccinate them, too, as soon as they are born. (And yes, some parents-to-be seriously subject their babies to ultrasound just so they can take pictures. It's demented!)
Sound is very easily transmitted through fluids, by the way, and the fetus is floating in a sac of amniotic fluid that transmits the ultrasound energy right at them.

Ultrasound harms the fetus Here's what some other website have to say about how ultrasound harms the health of the fetus:From The Independent ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u... )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.The findings, reported in the Lancet, have led to calls for more research into the effects of ultrasound, and a leading obstetrician warns that 'prenatal ultrasound by itself can no longer be assumed to be entirely harmless'.From Midwifery Today ( Page Not Found... )The safety issue is made more complicated by the problem of exposure conditions. Clearly, any bio-effects that might occur as a result of ultrasound would depend on the dose of ultrasound received by the fetus or woman. But there are no national or international standards for the output characteristics of ultrasound equipment. The result is the shocking situation described in a commentary in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in which ultrasound machines in use on pregnant women range in output power from extremely high to extremely low, all with equal effect. The commentary reads, "If the machines with the lowest powers have been shown to be diagnostically adequate, how can one possibly justify exposing the patient to a dose 5,000 times greater?" It goes on to urge government guidelines on the output of ultrasound equipment and for legislation making it mandatory for equipment manufacturers to state the output characteristics. As far as is known, this has not yet been done in any country.

From NaturalNews ( http://www.naturalnews.com/019910_u... )...pregnant mice exposed to ultrasound gave birth to some offspring that suffered brain abnormalities. The mice exposed to ultrasound for 30 minutes or longer experienced a small but significant migration of brain neurons to improper places in the brain.


Sources for this story include:
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8...

[seri0uslyc0nfused]

I had an ultrasound 4 days before I miscarried. I really had never thought about it before, but I guess it could make sense.

[doremi]

Hmmm... I'm skeptical, but this is not something I have ever thought of before. I did not have u/s with either of my miscarriages.

[kaylakay]

I disagree.

I've had 5 ultrasounds and I'm almost 14 weeks pregnant. Tons of girls in PAL have gotten them also sometimes even weekly and their babies are fine. Most girls in my DDC have gotten one and their babies are still okay. My friend had diabetes and a weird disorder and had to get 2 ultrasounds a week and her baby was born okay.

I think people try to blame miscarriages on SOMETHING. I mean it seems like EVERYTHING is bad for pregnancy nowadays.

I had 3 losses and didn't have an US till after they already passed away. If you have a healthy pregnancy an US won't ruin it. There actually isn't that much that can ruin a textbook healthy pregnancy.

[humnck]

Originally Posted by kaylakay

I disagree.

I've had 5 ultrasounds and I'm almost 14 weeks pregnant. Tons of girls in PAL have gotten them also sometimes even weekly and their babies are fine. Most girls in my DDC have gotten one and their babies are still okay. My friend had diabetes and a weird disorder and had to get 2 ultrasounds a week and her baby was born okay.

I think people try to blame miscarriages on SOMETHING. I mean it seems like EVERYTHING is bad for pregnancy nowadays.

I had 3 losses and didn't have an US till after they already passed away. If you have a healthy pregnancy an US won't ruin it. There actually isn't that much that can ruin a textbook healthy pregnancy.

I tend to agree with this, I have had both "unhealthy" (while seemingly healthy with the 2nd loss) and "healthy" pg's, each time have had early u/s's for viability check. I think the argument can be made that getting recreational u/s's might not be the best idea, because there really isn't enough evidence to point to either, but when getting u/s's for health reasons/other issues, I would not discount them as perfectly safe. They say x-ray and MRI are dangerous to fetuses too, but you can still have a perfectly healthy pg after having had either - my sister is proof of the x-ray part and I the MRI, neither of us knew we were pg when we had the tests done, but found out within like 2 days of them. However, I also think it is a personal comfort level, if you feel that it is unnecessary, voice your concern to your doctor, you might be surprised what they have to say. I trust the medical community, always have (perhaps the scientist in me), but in the end it is your body and your mind, so it's still your decision!

[BeckyBozeman]

While I do believe that anything should be used with moderation and strictly as needed, I too tend to come down on the skeptic side of this, for several reasons. With both of my losses I had early u/s, at about 7 weeks. Both showed a baby that was behind in growth. We're still testing so I don't know what it was, but something was already wrong with my babies before I got near the ultrasound machine. Another reason is that they do considerably many more u/s in Europe (I believe it's generally normal to have one at every appt?) and I haven't heard anything about them having any higher rates of miscarriage than we do here, where the "norm" is one or two scans during a pregnancy. And the study that's cited in the OP talks about it damaging fetuses in mice when they were exposed to ultrasound for 30 minutes or longer? Has anyone here had a scan that lasted more than a few minutes? I've had four now and I don't think with any of them I was actually being scanned for more than five minutes...

I agree that there's a tendency in this country to have unnecessary thing done. But I don't think that having a scan or two to check on the baby is going to cause a miscarriage anymore than having a couple of drinks before you know you're pregnant or having sex while you're pregnant. And can having a quick scan really be any worse for the baby than the stress and terror most of us would feel being PAL if we couldn't get a scan or two to reassure us?

[Lav]

Thank you all for your interesting perspectives on this.

What does PAL mean?

I understand what you say about blaming something, kylakay, but I don't think this should be seen as a general rule, as nothing else should be seen that way... it's simply one more thing to put out there as a possibility.

Originally Posted by BeckyBozeman

Another reason is that they do considerably many more u/s in Europe (I believe it's generally normal to have one at every appt?) and I haven't heard anything about them having any higher rates of miscarriage than we do here, where the "norm" is one or two scans during a pregnancy.

Really? Interesting! That's a good point.

Originally Posted by BeckyBozeman

And the study that's cited in the OP talks about it damaging fetuses in mice when they were exposed to ultrasound for 30 minutes or longer? Has anyone here had a scan that lasted more than a few minutes? I've had four now and I don't think with any of them I was actually being scanned for more than five minutes...

Mine took 30 min. ...

[LindseyE117]

PAL means pregnancy after loss. It is another forum on here for women who have graduated from TTCAL.

With my doctor I was high risk. I would have an u/s every month and she was born healthy and on time. For my son, I was in a study and I had tons of u/s done with no issues either. Sometimes these scans lasted over an hour.

I also agree that when you lose a baby and there seems to be nothing wrong you want to find a reason for that loss. I had 2 losses with no u/s after 2 very successful pregnancies. Mine turned out to be a weak ovulation and low progesterone.

Anyway, my point being is that I do not think that u/s is unsafe. Everything that was safe before seems to be unsafe now. I don't look into it that much.

[L-SBB]

No, i don't believe u/s cause miscarriages. Now that said, there is risk in everything and my OB is actually very conservative in the number of u/s given unless there's an issue. When I asked her about doing a 3D with Savannah, she talked us out of it...and essentially said while they're "safe" she doesn't recommend doing them for no reason as nothing is ultimately 100% safe

There's also risk in using dopplers too...which is why I leave it to OB to do them only as needed, although I understand why a lot of women buy them for use at home.

And even if u/s and dopplers aren't entirely safe, risk should be taken with some perspective....if u/s automatically caused m/c (or even raised it a significant %) no one would be performing them. The fact that so many women have them and experience no issue and give birth to healthy babies I think discounts significantly how much harm they could possible be causing.

[Lav]

Thank you for your answers! That does make a lot of sense.

[*Izzy's*Mommy*]

Originally Posted by kaylakay

I disagree.

I've had 5 ultrasounds and I'm almost 14 weeks pregnant. Tons of girls in PAL have gotten them also sometimes even weekly and their babies are fine. Most girls in my DDC have gotten one and their babies are still okay. My friend had diabetes and a weird disorder and had to get 2 ultrasounds a week and her baby was born okay.

I think people try to blame miscarriages on SOMETHING. I mean it seems like EVERYTHING is bad for pregnancy nowadays.

I had 3 losses and didn't have an US till after they already passed away. If you have a healthy pregnancy an US won't ruin it. There actually isn't that much that can ruin a textbook healthy pregnancy.

I agree ^

With my daughter, I had ultrasounds at 6, 8, and 28 weeks along. She was born absolutely perfect at 38 weeks.

With my m/c, I went in for an ultrasound at 11 weeks, and it turns out it was a blighted ovum.

I know soooo many people who have had tons of ultrasounds with no issues. I think if it's a healthy pregnancy, various things won't hurt it (ie; bf'ing, sex, orgasms, ultrasounds, physical activity..etc...)

Just my

[ninja_mommy]

I agree with most posters. I don't think it's healthy to have lots and lots of u/s but I don't think they neccesarily cause m/c. I know after I had mine I was really regretting getting my flu shot and blamed m/c on that for awhile. But, I still mostly accept the fact that something else was wrong.

[Lav]

It's hard to accept that, when no one can tell you WHAT exactly was wrong.

[tobi4]

Originally Posted by Lav

It's hard to accept that, when no one can tell you WHAT exactly was wrong.

This exactly is what feeds articles like this one. I would guarantee you did not miscarry because of an ultrasound. I would bet that absolutely nothing you did or should have done, or should not have done was the cause of your loss. It sadly happens with no explanation. Im sorry for your loss.

[Lav]

Thank you, tobi.

To all: I wasn't suggesting that I absolutely believed this, but one does look for explanations and when someone gives you a possible reason, you go out to search and research and find the truth behind the reasoning. I was interested in what you all thought of this idea.
Personally I disliked the thought of possibly having "killed" my own baby and rather believe that the u/s did not cause this.

Just wanted to make that clear.

[luvmykids623]

I don't believe that u/s cause miscarriages. With my first loss the baby had already passed before I had an u/s. With my second the entire m/c happened before I had a chance to get an u/s. With my third I had u/s starting at 6w and I never measured where I was supposed to. At 8w baby measured 6 and had a weak h/b, and by 9w the heart had stopped beating. With DS and DD I had many u/s starting at 8 weeks, and they are fine. With this pregnancy I had an u/s at 5w6d, 6w3d, 6w6d, 7w5d, 8w3d, 11w2d, 13w5d, 15w3d, 16w5d, 20w2d, and 24w2d so far, with many more to come, and both babies are doing great. I don't think that anything that you did caused your m/c including an u/s. I am so sorry for your loss!

[boysarebest]

I did not have any ultrasounds with my miscarriages until after to confirm something was wrong. I had 16 ultrasounds with my last child.

With both pregnancies that I m/c I had pap smears early on and I read somewhere that those could cause a m/c. I blamed that for some time. Now when I think back there are so many things that can happen, who really knows.

[Servilia]

Scaremongering.
Note that this ultrasound that kills sperm is "new technology". It's not the same ultrasound that they use to view the fetus. Ultrasound comes in many varying powers. Also, my doubts were confirmed by the personal bias of the writer in judging "conceited yuppie parents". I wouldn't call this journalism. It's biased scaremongering.

[sandiegomom]

I have to comment on this:
I actually wrote a paper for one of my old nursing classes on how people use the internet for medical information and sources. These sites typically do not have "credible" information. You can find just about any site to tell you whatever you want to hear. I am not be sarcastic....being honest. In nursing research classes you only use information from legitimate healthcare sources or research sources, such as Harvard, etc. I see it on here so often, that people quote articles from Yahoo Shine,etc. and believe them to be accurate and true because it was posted on Yahoo! 7/10 times, the articles are B.S. Seriously...... So, enough of my rant.

On the article you posted. I believe it isn't a good idea to do it constantly for fun and photos, because you are still exposing the baby to outside influences, but I do not believe for any reason an 8 wk viability scan will specifically cause a m/c. I had u/s with my first daughters and had no issues. No u/s with either of my two losses. Most likely, those unfortunate losses were destined to happen. If it worries anyone, don't have the u/s. It is a choice. But at 20wks, there are many problems that could be diagnosed and even treated before the baby is born, so I wouldn't advocate not having them. The benefits outweigh the risks in most cases. So...again....just wait until later on in the pregnancy if it is a concern.

[Lav]

boysarebest,

how could a pap smear be a cause? o.O

sandiegomom,

Thank you for your comment. Again, I want to point out that I did not "believe" what was said in that article. I merely was open to the possibility and was looking (obviously) for other opinions on the matter.