We know that sharing your pregnancy scan experience is important, especially in light of the current pandemic restrictions. That’s why we’ve partnered with triceimaging to be able to send you the images, videos and scan report straight to your mobile phone (as well as giving you some printouts…)
From @triceimaging: Don’t have a belly to show off yet? Ultrasound pictures will do!
With a push of a button – The Tricefy Patient App allows you to send patient images directly to your loved ones. Click on the link in our bio to refer your provider (and try our demo?!) and we will set them up with a free trial so that they can start sending quick, secure, high-resolution links of your ultrasound scans directly to your mobile phone!
We are extremely honoured to have been approached by the BBC to take some stock images and videos for their archive! The BBC producers came across some of our ultrasound images and were ‘really impressed by the outstanding quality and clarity of the images’.
We enjoyed hosting the BBC producers and camera crew at our clinic and talking about the importance of prenatal ultrasound screening and especially Dr Ushakov’s areas of expertise in echocardiography and neurosonography.
This means that going forward you will see our images on BBC news on items related to fetal medicine and pregnancy. We would like to clarify that, to date, City Ultrasound is not related to any of those news items.
You probably heard the above term mentioned in the context of pregnancy scans, but what does it actually mean? Nuchal Translucency is a sonographic phenomenon which can be seen best at around 11-13 weeks of gestation. It refers to the thickness of the liquid that can be seen on an ultrasound image behind the baby’s neck.
Why is it important? Research has shown that an increased NT thickness can indicate a higher chance of occurrence of certain chromosomal or structural anomalies. The key word being CAN; in some cases the excess fluid will dissolve further along the pregnancy and the babies will be born completely normal.
The NHS cut off for normal NT thickness measurement is anything below 3.5mm. It is measured as part of the Combined Screening where a blood sample as taken as well to assess the chance of 3 chromosomal anomalies; Down’s Syndrome, Edward’s Syndrome and Patau’s Syndrome. Being a screening test, it is not diagnostic meaning that it cannot give a definite yes/no answer. In case of higher chance results, further investigation is required.
More recently, a new screening test known as Non Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) was developed. It involves a simple blood sample taken from the mother’s arm and is capable of detecting Down’s Syndrome with a 99% accuracy, vs 76% accuracy of the Combined Test and 69% accuracy for the Nuchal Test alone. You should take these percentages with a pinch of salt, given Down’s Syndrome in itself is a reasonably rare anomaly which is becoming more likely with age; 1:1250 for a 26-year-old pregnant woman rising to 1:100 for a 40-year-old.
Conclusion:
NT can be a useful indicator for certain anomalies, but should be used very carefully for screening purposes. An increased NT measurement warrants a further investigation such as examination of the baby by ultrasound to exclude certain structural anomalies (especially heart defects) and possibly diagnostic invasive tests such as CVS or Amniocentesis. These invasive tests carry a small risk of miscarriage; an alternative to avoid these invasive test is screening using NIPT such as the Harmony Test.
At City Ultrasound we also perform an examination of the fetal heart (echocardiography) with every scan from 12 weeks, to screen for potential heart defects.
Please note – ultrasound itself cannot exclude all anomalies/complications that can occur during pregnancy.
In the video, Dr Ushakov demonstrates how the NT is measured using ultrasound. This video from 2011 has ~370,000 views on YouTube. Read more about Nuchal Translucency on our website.
What is it and why do we need it? As you may remember from our post about how ultrasound works, you’ll recall that ultrasound tech utilises sound waves.
Those waves travel through the mother’s tummy and are reflected to the transducer when they reach the surface the clinician would like to examine. Ultrasound waves struggle to travel through air, so when transabdominal ultrasound is performed, we apply a gel to remove any interference from air particles in between the mother’s tummy and the transducer.
This is also the reason why in older ultrasound equipment a full bladder is required to enhance the imaging quality – this is not the case with our advanced Voluson E10!
What are the ingredients you ask? Mainly water and propylene glycol, which is substance often used in food, cosmetics and hygiene products. It is designed to be sticky to allow it to be spread on the tummy without running off.
At City Ultrasound we use a purposely designed ultrasound gel warmer to avoid the unpleasant sensation when a cold gel is applied. Because the small details matter…
Can you guess by looking at the above ultrasound image? The gender of the baby can be determined using ultrasound from about 13 weeks of gestation with a high certainty of about 95%. From 14 weeks, the gender can be determined with close to 100% certainty using ultrasound.
Another way the sex of the baby can be determined is through Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) from 10 weeks of gestation – however results typically take 5-7 days to come back from the lab.
At City Ultrasound, we can determine the gender of your baby from 13 weeks upon request. This is included organically in the cost of the scan, however the primary focus of our specialist would be to check the wellbeing and development of your baby. We don’t offer a quick ‘gender scan’ just to determine the sex of the baby
On our website, we have in-depth information about our process and types of scans, but if you do have any questions at all, please feel free to get in touch with us!
In today’s post we’s like to deviate a bit from the usual ultrasound pregnancy scan content to talk about birthdays! As the world is celebrating the birth of 2021 we decided to look at some stats on the ONS website. Ever wondered how common is your birthday?
We looked at some stats from the ONS and about average daily births in England and Wales from 1995 to 2014. It’s not a big surprise that the least common birthdays coincide with national holidays: 26th Dec, 25th Dec and 1st Jan are the least popular birthdays according to ONS data (in this order.)
The curious thing is that the most popular birthday period comes towards the end of September, and in particular September 26th being the most common birthday (followed by September 25th and 24th.) September 26th is 39 weeks and 2 days after Christmas, which is approximately 9 months… Hmmmm, looks like a lot of babies are being made right now during the festive season!
City Ultrasound was born on 12th of April which is the 305th out of 366 in the list. How popular is your birthday? Visit the ONS website to find out!
Source: ONS website. Note that February 29th is actually the least common birthday, but since it only occurs every 4 years the data was adjusted to account for that.
How is your Christmas break going? We have been going through some of the ultrasound images we took this year and found some awesome images with you! Here’s a fetus in 3D in his mother’s womb at 12 weeks taken on our GE Voluson E10 ultrasound machine. How amazing is this? You can clearly see the baby’s tiny ears, fingers, and the umbilical cord. This particular baby measures less than 5.5cm (~2.1 inches) in this image.
Twin pregnancies can be detected as early as 6 weeks in some cases. However, if you would like to know for sure as well as hear the baby’s heartbeat, you can book a Viability Scan with us from 8 weeks, to:
Estimate the Gestational Age (GA) or the Estimated Due Date (EDD) Confirm the baby’s heartbeat Check for twin pregnancies Verification of normal development of the pregnancy and the baby (embryo)
In the images below you can see:
Twins in a womb at about 8 weeks GA via a standard 2D transabdominal scan. Note that both embryos are about the size of a blueberry at this stage! A transvaginal (TVS) 3D image of twins in the womb at about 9 weeks GA A model we have at the clinic to demonstrate the development of twins in the womb at later stages in the pregnancy.
On our website, we have in-depth information about our process and types of scans, but if you do have any questions at all, please feel free to get in touch with us!
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Call us on 020 3687 2939
Estimate the Gestational Age (GA) or the Estimated Due Date (EDD)
Twins in a womb at about 8 weeks GA via a standard 2D transabdominal scan. Note that both embryos are about the size of a blueberry at this stage!
A transvaginal (TVS) 3D image of twins in the womb at about 9 weeks GA
A model we have at the clinic to demonstrate the development of twins in the womb at later stages in the pregnancy.
