CT SCAN during pregnancy

letty020

I went into the emergency room on 02/11 with stomach pains. The doctors ordered a scan with contrast and an upper gi. They asked me if I was pregnant and I said I was not sure and that if I was it was very recent, since my last period was on 01/21 (which means I would have ovulated on about 02/05). After a pregnancy test, the results were negative. They did a stomach scan with contrast and an upper GI. Today, after realizing I am late, I took a home pregnancy test and its positive. I am worried about the radiation I was exposed to. My husband thinks I got pregnant after the 11th but I am not sure. Has this happened to anyone????

iverske9

I am no doctor but check with your doctor. I also think about our grandparents and how they used to xray the babies and people came out healthy (crazy huh) so stay hopeful and talk to your doctor.

mrs_rodney

There is quite a bit of raditaion having two studies like that (much more than in an xray).  However, being in that grey area where you there may have been implantation, but not enough hormones present to make a test read positive, leaves the ER to assume you aren't pregnant.  Most likely, everything is fine.  While it is not ideal, you likely didn't surpass the radiation level that would cause harm to the baby.  However, the baby's rapidly dividing cells are more sensitive to the effects of radiation the earlier you are, so I would mention this to your OB (although I'm not certain how this applies during the 2WW). I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point.  The fact that you have a positive pregnancy test probably means all if OK.

NikkiBenzo

When I was PG with my DD, I was very sick - had a stroke (long story) and they needed to do a CT scan because I had blood clots in my brain. Long story short, the hospital was afraid to do a CT scan and opted for an MRI. When I recovered and saw my maternal fetal medicine physician, he said that doctors panic for no reason when it comes to CT scans and radiation. He said that I would have had to have like 30 CT scans in a row for it to make a difference. He was almost amused by the paranioa in the medical community about radiation and pregnancy. He said that he has done extensive research on the subject.

letty020

Thank you all for your post. I finally went to by OB and talked to him about it and he assured me that it was not a big deal at all. In fact he told me that since it was so soon, if it would have affected the fetus I would have miscarried. Its been a couple of weeks now and everything is fine so I am not going to worry anymore. I also did not tell anyone in my family because I figured if I did it would be the topic of conversation for the next 9 months.

Good luck everyone!