Ultrasound: 7 Reasons Your Developing Baby Says it’s NOT Safe or Painless
January 20, 2015, By Jackie Lombardo
Except
for the slimy goo and full bladder, Maureen Markus remembers her first
ultrasound fondly when she was 10 weeks pregnant. “My husband was with me and together we heard our son’s heartbeat for
the first time!” Before she left the doctor’s office, Maureen was given the
first image of her unborn child.
And
that was comforting.
Until
now, it’s been understood that the medical procedure known as ultrasound is
safe and painless. But is it so for both
mom and baby?
No
one’s really certain. No one knows for sure what effects ultrasound have on the
developing fetus. But since the time when Maureen had her first child, we’ve
learned more.
Research is raising questions about
the procedure’s safety. In
fact, this past December 2014, the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its first ever caution on ultrasound
during pregnancy.
But first, what exactly is Ultrasound?
Aptly
named, ultra-sound waves reach a high
frequency
of about 20 megahertz or 20 million cycles per second;
greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound machines adapted for
use as a medical test must generate
waves only in pulses because one
continuous ultrasound wave could produce too much heat potentially damaging the
tissue being examined.
Depending
on the machine used, ultrasound during pregnancy can pulse to pick up a baby's
heartbeat and create an image of the baby and placenta. The pulses bounce off
the fetus providing immediate feedback on a monitor, and a black and white
image is printed out and offered to the parents to keep.
What are the benefits of Ultrasound?
Ultrasound
used earlier in pregnancy help
determine your due date, or the age of the fetus, as well as
whether you’re having more than one baby. Later on the procedure can show the
baby’s position, the amount of amniotic fluid, and estimate the baby’s health
and weight.
It’s
important to know ultrasound is not medically
necessary if all is well with mom and baby. Yet ultrasound is the most
widely used medical imaging method during pregnancy.
How
many ultrasounds you receive depends on your healthcare provider’s evaluation
with you and your partner’s input. There is no medical recommendation to
receive an ultrasound, and there is no recommended number that should be
performed.
While the procedure may be safe and
painless for the mom, questions about safety and pain for the baby have been
raised.
Ultrasound
waves are vibrations that pass through matter and transfer their energy from
one point to another. If there is no physical matter to bounce off, then
nothing can vibrate and there is no sound.
Though
ultrasound pulses reach a frequency greater than our ability to hear, researchers demonstrated that the fetus may
hear them. Greenleaf, et al from the Department of Basic Ultrasound Research,
Mayo Clinic and Foundation in Rochester, Minnesota placed a small hydrophone
inside a pregnant woman's uterus and found…
…the
force, from the impact of the ultrasound pulses, produced an audible localized high‐intensity noise due to secondary
vibrations in a woman's uterus.
How loud
was this high‐intensity
noise? When the ultrasound probe pointed right at the hydrophone, it registered 100 decibels.
Put
in perspective: 20
decibels sounds like a whisper, 110 is the average human pain threshold, and
150 decibels is eardrum rupture.
THREE:
Prolonged use of ultrasound can result
in unsafe energy levels.
The
FDA is clear - fetal ultrasound Dopplers for use at home could pose risks to
your baby. The agency also strongly discourages keepsake ultrasound scans explaining
both could expose the fetus to prolonged
and unsafe energy levels.
FOUR: Ultrasound is capable of
deforming cell membranes.
Dr. Manuel
Casanova, M.D., Professor of Anatomical Sciences and
Neurobiology at the University of Louisville and the Gottfried and Gisela Kolb
Endowed Chair in Outpatient Psychiatry spoke with my friend and author
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D. about ultrasound.
It
is precisely because ultrasound can deform cells that, as Dr. Casanova
explained, “…the FDA has approved the use of
ultrasound for bone fractures because it accelerates cell division, it
accelerates healing of the bone.”
FIVE: Ultrasound is capable of
deforming brain cell membranes
which may lead to autism.
Ultrasound
can’t tell the difference between brain cells or other cells. “When it (ultrasound) deforms the membrane of the cell, it
activates mechanisms that have to do with cell growth and with cell divisions…
Within the brain of autistic individuals there appears to be something that
promotes the division of these stem cells…at
a time when they shouldn’t be dividing.” Jennifer further discusses ultrasound
in her book, The Business of Baby, and wrote more on the subject for the Daily Beast.
SIX: Yale researchers
also found a significant number of
neurons failed to acquire their proper position in the brain.
Instead,
the neurons remained dispersed throughout, after mice were exposed to
ultrasound waves for 30 min or longer. Eugenius, et al,
Department of Neurobiology and Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, Yale Medical
School, demonstrated that while the amount of scattered neurons was variable,
the scatter methodically increased with the duration of ultrasound suggesting long
ultrasounds may harm the developing brain.
Yes, ultrasound can affect proper neuron
migration to appropriate positions in the developing brain. This process is
critical to normal brain function. And we are learning this process is also
vulnerable to environmental and physical factors.
"The bottom line is you only
get one chance to develop a brain," Philippe
Grandjean, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health.
SEVEN: Ultrasound can make tissues hot
enough to cause damage.
"Ultrasound can heat tissues slightly, and in
some cases, it can also produce very small bubbles (cavitation) in some tissues”,
explains FDA biomedical engineer Shahram Vaezy, Ph.D.. The FDA continues its caution with “The long-term effects of tissue
heating and cavitation are not known. Therefore, ultrasound scans should be
done only when there is a medical need, based on a prescription, and performed
by appropriately-trained operators.”
Ultrasound does not improve health
for babies.
A
case for the procedure can be made for its ability to detect abnormalities
early enough for parents to choose to abort. But detection is limited. Of the
more than 5000 potential chromosomal abnormalities, ultrasound can detect only
a few like Down's syndrome. Ultrasound can also misdiagnose abnormalities when
there are none, or detect abnormalities about which nothing can be done. Parents
may be left with some tough decisions.
Maureen
is pregnant with her third child. “There’s
no doubt that hearing our baby's heartbeat was deeply moving. But now we’re wondering
if a first glimpse of our baby or getting a due date is worth risking harm. Those
dates are never exact anyway.”
Ultrasound
should only be used if medically indicated.
Healthy
pregnancies do not require ultrasound.
If
you or someone you know is considering ultrasound during pregnancy, please
share this science to help them make an informed decision.
Autism
now affects 1 in every 42 boys. There’s a lot we don’t know yet.
So we turn over every rock. Take every
precaution. Ensure there will be no harm.
It's your
baby. Your body. Your decision.