did you get an NT scan?
My good friend/co-worker is pregnant and she's one of those "normal" gals who got pregnant all on her own (without having to pay someone! still boggles my mind. ha ha). She followed my recommendation that my ob is cool, so she sees her. I asked said friend the other day how many u/s she had had (she's about 17 weeks or so) and she said she'd just had one so far and would get the next one in a couple of weeks. I asked her if she'd be doing the NT scan and she said, "the NT what?"
So yesterday when I was at my ob's office for my NST, I asked the nurse how many u/s normal girls get and she said "just 2-one during 1st tri for viability and dating and one at 20 weeks for gender, but mostly for measuring." And then I asked about NT scans, why they don't do those for everyone and she didn't really have an answer.
Now I'm curious, did everyone here have an NT scan? Did you have to request it if you're a "normal" gal? Did the doctors tell you to have it done? If you didn't do it, had you wanted to or not?
Re: did you get an NT scan?
The O'Baby Blog
It was optional but not encouraged with my first OB. They only did the 2 u/s like you described.
With my second OB, they suggested we do it, so we did.
This is pretty much exactly the same thing that happened to us.
The way I understand it, the NT scan is the ultrasound where they measure the baby's nuchal fold (in the back of the baby's neck), which if it's above a certain measurement, can be an indicator for the baby possibly having Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 18 and I think a couple other things.
The "First Screen" is the finger-prick blood test that they usually do in conjunction with the NT scan, which also scans for the possibility of these types of diseases/disorders. They both can only be done between 11-14 weeks gestation. They are both optional procedures, and OB's usually recommend them for high risk pregnancies but it's always the patient's choice. Many women I know got them, because insurance usually covers it, and it's an extra chance to see your baby on u/s.
I had it done.
When 3 Became 4
ali-from what I gathered from my NT scan, it's a scan around 12 weeks where they do an u/s to measure the fold at the back of the neck(s), which can tell the doctor how high a risk your baby has for the trisomies. At the same time, they'll do a blood test and send that away to see if your baby is at risk for having Down Syndrome and all that. They usually measure all the body parts at that time too, but mostly their focus is the fold at the neck.
thanks for responses, I guess some offices are different than others. I suppose if I'd been a "normal" girl, I wouldn't know about them and just had my 2 u/s like everyone else!
Joyco - I would imagine that your automatic NT scan was more because you're high risk due to carrying multiples, rather than being "abnormal" because you paid someone for your babies! Or, it could be both
When 3 Became 4
Knowing me, it's probably both.
ha ha.
its optional at the current practice I go to and they send us to a perinatologist to get it done (they have better U/S machines etc). We are opting for it.
Some drs and I believe most midwives are hesitant to have multiple U/S for various reasons. My bradley birthing instructor said that there have been studies to show that they can stress the baby amongst other things (can't remember off the top of my head). That being said, while I am all for natural birth yadda yadda, I totally want to know everything about the little life growing inside me... SO I will always opt for every u/s that we can have done that is covered by insurance!
OH! Yes, I had that. They called it something else, I don't remember what. It was the first of only 2 u/s that I had while pg with DD.
I think its new though - when I was pg with DS they only offered a blood test.
I'm not really a "normal" girl since I get scans every month, but I'll answer anyway.
My short answer is no, I didn't have an NT scan.
Here's the long version:
I went to my peri's office for a regularly scheduled scan at 13(?) weeks. No one really talked to me about an NT scan. I asked the peri about it, and he said, oh, your doctor didn't order it so we're not doing that today. The next week I met with my OB for our regular monthly visits and told her about it. She was highly annoyed. All my peri had to do was call her office, and she would have said yes, run the damn scan. But they didn't. We were off to England the next day for Christmas so there was no time to squeeze one in before that window for NT scans closed. Oh well. I did have the quad screen at 16 weeks though, and all came back ok so I'm hoping we're good.
When I was PG with Abby this was not common practice, not even sure if it was offered at all, maybe? They did the quad screens back then.
With this PG I was offered the 1st screen (which I think the NT scan is part of). We declined ALL genetic testing though just like the first time around. I knew that there was no way I would opt for a amnio so we figured all the testing would do is make me worry if our results were not good.
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
Ditto this.
I thought sonogram and ultrasound were synonymous.. Is there a difference? ?
The O'Baby Blog
The Blog
My doctor's office recommended it only because it was 1 more u/s and our insurance paid for it, but let me tell you this it was not a good experience. I am a "normal" girl, 26 years old at the time, no hx of downs or anything, healthy pregnancy. We went to get the scan done and the tech kept measuring over and over again, we were there for about 1 hr. Then the doctor walked it and measured again. I asked if everything was fine and he said that there was a slight fluid build up and he needed to verify. We had the u/s at another dr office because my ob does not do them at her office. 1 week later I get a call that there was an 85% chance of my baby being born with downs. The u/s and the blood work done gave it this high possibility. We were so scared and I was scared the entire rest of the pregnancy, I knew I wanted to have my baby and declined further testing. We later found out that your doctor has to have precise measurements of the fetus to make sure you get the testing done at a certain amount of weeks, we were 2 weeks late which threw off the test. I think if you have no hx of it and already plan on having your baby, you could possibly save yourself lots of unecessary pain throughout the pregnancy, it is definitely something that if my ob had explained it more in depth with me, seeing how this was my first pregnancy, I would not have done, sorry for such a long reply!
DS was born healthy and with no complications!
I think it has to do with age, too. NT scans were not available when I was pg with dd so we did the amnio (I was 35) and with DS we did the NT scan to avoid the amnio.