Bond With Baby
Precious Glimpse
Runnin’ Out of Womb
These are just some of the cutesy names for nearby businesses that offer pregnant women—and their families—2-D and 3-D ultrasounds for a fee.
These ultrasounds are elective and non-medical. They’re advertised as a way to help you feel closer to your unborn baby and include the whole family in your pregnancy.
But wait. There’s more. If you want to bond with your baby in the privacy of your own home, you can buy yourself an ultrasound machine. Right now. Today. Off Amazon or from a wholesale vendor. Anyone can.
Keepsake ultrasounds discouraged
At the same time, even the Food and Drug Administration does not endorse elective ultrasounds.
In the Benefits/Risks section of its consumer information about ultrasound imaging, the FDA asserts that prenatal ultrasound a procedure that is “generally considered safe when used prudently by appropriately trained health care providers.”
However, the government authority continues, ultrasound energy “has the potential to produce biological effects on the body. Ultrasound waves can heat the tissues slightly.
“In some cases, it can also produce small pockets of gas in body fluids or tissues (cavitation). The long-term consequences of these effects are still unknown” [my emphasis].
Because the long-term health consequences are not known, the FDA advocates for “prudent use” of pregnancy ultrasound imaging.
In past consumer updates, the FDA discouraged the use of keepsake prenatal ultrasounds and videos. Now their wording is less categorical.
In content current as of 1/12/2024, the FDA asserts: “the use of ultrasound solely for non-medical purposes … has been discouraged.” [the astute reader will take note of the passive voice here] “Keepsake images or videos are reasonable if they are produced during a medically-indicated exam, and if no additional exposure is required.”
Rarely medically necessary
What the FDA (and the doctors) are not telling pregnant women, however, is that pregnancy ultrasounds are very rarely medically necessary.
The concerns about keepsake non-medical ultrasounds also apply to routine supposedly medically indicated ultrasounds.
Which means that exposing your unborn baby to ultrasound energy has the potential to cause your baby harm.
What’s more, most sonographers have very little understanding of even the most basic safety practices.
In other words, pregnancy ultrasounds may not be necessary, safe, or effective.
Is this starting to sound familiar?
5 reasons to avoid ultrasounds during pregnancy
1. There’s no proven benefit to having routine prenatal ultrasounds
ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, explains in its Practice Bulletin No. 101, “Ultrasonography in Pregnancy,” that ultrasounds can identify the presence of twins, congenital deformations, and growth restriction in utero. However, the same bulletin points out that “direct health benefits from having this knowledge are currently unproven” [my emphasis].
2. Ultrasound gel is not safe, according to science
The gel used on the abdomen to help the transducer glide more smoothly contains endocrine disruptorsthat have the potential to harm the baby’s hormone systems.
A 2017 study done by scientists at Harvard University found that the endocrine disrupting chemicals were present and bio-persistent.
3. First trimester exposure to ultrasound linked to more severe autism
In a 2016 study, a team of scientists in Washington found that babies exposed to ultrasound during the first trimester of their mamas’ gestation had more severe autism symptoms as children than those who were not exposed to first trimester ultrasounds.
Given the disturbing rise in autism among America’s children, anything that might contribute to ASD should be assiduously avoided.
4. Ultrasound is a type of wave whose energy deforms cell membranes and may harm the baby’s developing brain
Because ultrasound waves affect cell membranes, these waves can affect cells that have a proclivity or vulnerability for being deformed.
These tend to be the cells in the body that divide most quickly.
Exposing cells to ultrasound waves accelerates cell division, which is why ultrasound is used in bone healing, for example.
Stem cells in the brain of the unborn baby are vulnerable to being deformed.
One of the country’s most respected neurologists, Manual Casanova, M.D./Ph.D., has shown that ill-timed or over-exposure to ultrasound waves during gestation is linked to autism.
Dr. Casanova’s hypothesis is supported by a small but fascinating and important body of scientific studies.
Recent science, including this study, this study, this one suggests that ultrasound exposure in the first trimester may cause the most harm.
Anecdotally, a few years ago I interviewed a mom whose children—all five of them—have autism. This mom stopped vaccinating after her first two children became severely brain impaired. The family also became much more careful about toxic exposures. So she knew not to take Tylenol during her pregnancies and she also avoided the recommended pregnancy vaccines. With her younger children, she had unmedicated births.
One thing she did do, even with her home births: prenatal ultrasounds.
Could that be one reason why all of her children have brain anomalies?
It’s impossible to know.
5. Ultrasounds are often simply wrong
We all know a mama who was told she was having a ____ and then the baby turned out to be a ____. Surprise!
But much more seriously, ultrasounds will often detect anomalies that either don’t exist or are self-resolving, causing pregnant women and their families a huge amount of unnecessary stress.
As troublesome, pregnant women in the third trimester will often be told to get additional ultrasounds to measure the amount of amniotic fluid in the womb.
Even a skilled technician, however, will often misjudge the level of amniotic fluid, partly because it’s very hard to see, and also because the amount of amniotic fluid fluctuates throughout the day.
Babies delivered at The Johns Hopkins Hospital whose mamas were low on amniotic fluid did just as well as babies born to mamas with higher fluid levels. And a low fluid level is can be easily fixed by helping the mama get more hydration and rest.
Yet a diagnosis of “low amniotic fluid” usually triggers a cascade of interventions, including inducing labor before the baby and the mama are ready, which can lead to myriad issues, including unnecessary cesarean birth and health problems once the baby is born.
“We need to go back to clinical palpation skills and stop depending on sound wave fuzzy pictures to assess the amount of fluid at full-term,” midwife Gloria LeMay insists.
If you don’t want a routine ultrasound, what should you do?
If some other clinical test indicates a problem, an ultrasound may make sense.
Especially if you plan to abort a baby who appears to have congenital health problems.
But in a normal pregnancy there is no need for any ultrasounds.
Yet nearly all pregnant women are subjected to ultrasounds these days. Even women who are having planned homebirths are told by their midwives that they “must” have at least one ultrasound.
The medical establishment pushes this test because they can bill more money for each prenatal visit when the visit includes an ultrasound. Midwives insist on ultrasounds for liability reasons or because their licensing specifies that mamas “must” have them.
Expect to be looked at like you have five heads when you say, “No, thank you,” to the prenatal ultrasound your doctor or midwife has ordered.
Say, “No, thank you,” anyway.
If the doctor or midwife can’t live with your refusal to have an ultrasound, find a gentler, more evidence-based doctor or midwife to deliver your baby.
Related articles:
Everyone I Know Had a C-section, What’s The Big Deal?
“I Just Hope I Don’t Poop!”: Why Taking a Shit During Birth is Good for Your Baby
This Mom Had Her Baby in the Bathtub, Unassisted, Here’s Why
About the author:
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist and author of Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family. Currently based in Beaufort, South Carolina, she has worked on a child survival campaign in Niger; appeared on prime-time TV in France to speak out against child slavery; and taught non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Find out more by visiting her website, www.JenniferMargulis.net.
My wife wanted natural delivery for all out children, but our first daughter was breech. The obstetrician, woman, favored natural deliveries, not c-sections, and saw no need for ultrasounds. My wife said she just didn't feel right, something was wrong, and an ultrasound was done and indicated a footling breech position, the most dangerous for both baby and momma. My wife tried natural several techniques suggested by the obstetrician to have the baby move to a normal or at least buttucks first breech position, a bit safer. Nothing worked. She was recommended to see an obstetrician who was supposedly skilled in manual reversions. I cringed and left the room while the procedure was done. The doctor was convinced he was successful. An ultrasound still showed a footling breech. The original obstetrician said she had successfully delivered breech birthings of all positions, so when my wife went into labor she hoped for a natural delivery as did the doctor, but was prepared for a C-section because of what the ultrasounds revealed. I was in the room when my wifes labor was painful and long, then required an emergency C-section with my wife insisting I stay in the room. Our first born was birthed via C-section and when I saw her, she looked like an angel. Now 36 years later my oldest daughter has given birth to three healthy babies, the first a C-section in the hospital; the next two natural with a mid-wife in her bedroom. My wife went on to have 4 more children, all natural vaginal births. But I recall how helpful we found the ultrasounds for our first child and for my wife. Without them my wife's plan was to give birth in our home, which given the breech position could have ended the life of both my wife and my first daughter.
Thank you. I wish I had this advice. Way back when. And it is sad how much “old wives tales“ were so much wiser than we are today. We have a family member who nearly aborted, because the doctors assured her that her child was going to be born with multiple birth defects. Luckily, they didn’t listen. The child came out perfect!