My next baby ultrasound is scheduled for June 2, and I am really looking forward to seeing our baby on the monitor screen again. We don’t want to know what the sex of the baby is before it is born, so we will have to tell the sonagrapher (technician) not to tell us. My doc said that a second ultrasound wasn’t needed, but I just want to make sure that everything is ok and that the baby is starting to position itself for birth. The last thing I want is a surprise C-section.
Reasons for an pregnancy ultrasound include:
- To confirm the pregnancy and its location
- To determine your baby’s gestational age
- To confirm the number of babies
- To evaluate your baby’s growth
- To study the placenta
- To identify possible fetal abnormalities
- To investigate bleeding and other worrisome signs or symptoms
- To perform other prenatal tests
Before the ultrasound procedure, I will again have to drink 32 ounces of water and finish drinking it at least one hour before my examination is scheduled to begin. The reason for this is to eliminate pockets of air between my uterus and bladder, which helps create the clearest images. The difficult part is controlling my urine because I have to have a full bladder for the ultrasound exam. The procedure is painless - a technologist will put some scanning gel on my skin again and then will move an ultrasound scanhead across my abdomen. If you are lucky she will even warm up the gel for you like she did for me 
The technologist will then image different parts of the baby and take pictures using high frequency sound waves that visually convert into a pattern of light and dark areas - creating images of your baby on a monitor and on film. It is a very safe procedure with no ionizing radiation exposure and there is no known risk with ultrasound imaging. When everything is done, you can finally go relieve yourself in the washroom and stare in awe at your ulrasound pictures.
I was considering to do a 3d ultrasound earlier on in my pregnancy. This procedure consists of using specially designed probes and software to generate 3-D images of the developing fetus. After the procedure you recieve a 30 minute videotape of your baby. I was told that it looks like you are actually seeing your baby outside the whomb while it is moving around in every which direction. I decided against it because then we would be able to figure out the sex of the baby for sure.
There are basically seven different prenatal ultrasound exams, but the principle process is the same.
The different types of procedures include:
- transvaginal scans
- standard ultrasound
- advanced ultrasound
- doppler ultrasound
- 3-D ultrasound
- 4-D or Dynamic 3-D ultrasound
- fetal echocariography
Posted by Nancy as ultrasound at 5:47 PM EDT