When you are pregnant, you become more and more curious about your pregnancy and your baby’s growth. So, 12 week’s ultrasound gives you and your doctor, the information regarding your concerns.
Why 12 weeks?
A 12-week ultrasound provides clear information regarding:
- Are there any twins?
- Expected delivery date
- Any genetic disorders
A 12 weeks ultrasound gives your doctor a lot of info regarding your baby’s growth and some doctors also recommend 7 weeks ultrasound to find out any complications. Otherwise traditionally, 12-week ultrasound is your first ultrasound. This is an external examination to see the growth of your fetus.
How do you prepare?
A 12-week ultrasound requires you to have a full bladder to have a clear image. For this purpose, you must drink 2,3 glasses of water before an ultrasound.
What should you expect at your appointment?
12 weeks ultrasound is the external process in which you have to lie down on a bed and the doctor put some gel on your belly area and records the heartbeat of your baby and you can also see the image on the screen.
Sometimes an internal examination is required which is known as transvaginal ultrasound.it is performed when you did not get clear results from an external examination. Ultrasounds are not harmful because they do not use radiation. Instead, there is the use of sound waves in ultrasounds.
There is no research that shows any harmful effects of ultrasounds. In case of any doubts, most doctors suggest more ultrasounds to be clear about the information.
What will you see?
https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/12-weeks pregnant-ultrasound
A 12 week’s ultrasounds provide you and your doctor with a lot of info including;
- Chromosomal abnormalities like down syndrome
- Number of fetuses, they might be twins
- Expected due date
- Fetus heartbeat rate
But you might not able to get a clear picture of the baby’s organs or anatomical development during this ultrasound. So it is not necessary to confirm baby sex whether it is a boy or a girl, at this stage. Although parents are very excited to know the gender of the baby.
What about twins?
A 12-week ultrasound helps to find out if there are any twins, the sonographer will detect that they are identical twins or fraternal twins. This is to be done by a scan known as chorionicity.
Twins are monochorionic If twins share the same placenta. And such twins require more monitoring. A sonographer will check if there are any entanglements and transfusing problems from one fetus to another. When babies share two separate placentas, these are called the dichorionic placenta. Mostly fraternal twins belong to this category and they face the lowest risk factors because they have separate spaces to develop.
The babies who are twins can have size differences, if there is one large and one small baby, then the doctor will tell the expected date according to the larger baby’s size.
Some babies can hide or miss during the first ultrasound. But this is mostly in the case of identical twins when there is the same placenta and due to that, one baby can be missed.
What screening tests are done via ultrasound at 12 weeks?
Nuchal translucency screening is used to detect Down syndrome, trisomy 13, and Edwards syndrome at 12 weeks old pregnancy ultrasound. This screening is done in a combined form with the blood test. This screening test is not to diagnose these conditions but it provides the basis that there might be possibilities of having such disorders or abnormalities. This test uses the following factors to tell the risks:
- Your blood
- Ultrasound result
- Your age
- Your genetics
What if the dating of your pregnancy seems off?
When your expected delivery date given by the doctor, is not matched with your menses date or your expected date of conceiving, this troubles you, and this occurs due to the following points :
- You might forget about your last menstrual date.
- You might be ovulated at some other time than you expect.
- There can be a difference of 1 week during your early ultrasound.
Your doctor will expect a repeat ultrasound if the difference is more than 1 week, to see the proper growth of the baby.
The takeaway
Watching your baby on-screen during the ultrasound is a beautiful experience you might ever have and this is also emotional. You are very curious to know about your pregnancy.
Mostly your first ultrasound is a 12 weeks ultrasound. but doctors also recommend conducting a 7-week or earlier ultrasound to get the information regarding the clear expected date and due date, also some genetic conditions and risk factors. A 12-week ultrasound also informs about having twins. A 12 weeks ultrasound provides you with a clear image of your fetus’s growth and heart rate.
So, this article covers the factors behind conducting a12 weeks ultrasound.
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