by Dr Kelly Brogan, MD
(GreenMedInfo) “Clinical use of diagnostic ultrasound imaging during pregnancy has a long history of safety and diagnostic utility, as supported by numerous human case reports and epidemiological studies.However, there exist in vivo studies linking large but clinically relevant doses of ultrasound applied to mouse fetuses in utero to altered learning, memory, and neuroanatomy of those mice.”
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How may doctors and unknowing patients be colluding to harm unborn babies? This recent study suggests that the seemingly benign practice of obstetrical ultrasonography is one practice that deserves urgent reassessment. Researchers exposed pregnant mice at 14.5 days gestation (a neurologically vulnerable window) to 30 minutes of fetal ultrasound and assessed the pups’ behavior at 3 weeks of age. They found that the exposed pups were significantly less interested in social interactions and had significant levels of behavioral hyperactivity, in the presence of an unfamiliar mouse.
Why Did Ultrasounds Become Routine?
Today’s children have been exposed to an unprecedented level of ultrasound technology, both in frequency and intensity. In 2001, 67% of pregnant women had at least 1 ultrasound, and in 2009, that percentage jumped to 99.8% with an average of 3 per woman. What accounts for this increase? Do we have evidence to suggest that this intervention is saving lives, changing outcomes, and that it is safe? What about safety in the settings it is applied most frequently, such as advanced maternal age, metabolic syndromes, and complications? Could these higher risk pregnancies represent a category of fetus that is more vulnerable to potential side effects of an intervention like ultrasound?
It appears that, answers to these questions remain elusive despite widespread application for the following conventionally accepted reasons:
Gender determination
Screening for anomalies
Assessment of size/fluid level
Visualization for bonding/curiosity/entertainment
Assessment of placental position
As one survey concluded,
“Women appear to want sonograms for reasons that may not assist their provider with immediate clinical decision making. This is a potentially important disagreement between cost-saving and patient satisfaction that maternity care providers must consider when deciding whether to perform prenatal sonography for women with low-risk pregnancies.”
In other words, women are lured into the prospect of reassurance and information about an uncertainty-laden bodily experience, and providers may cater to that desire in neglect of accumulating concerns, lack of benefit, and conflict around financial gains ($86-102/scan).
Are They Safe and Effective?
As is the case for most habitual rather than evidence-based medicine, the vast majority of women undergoing this procedure are not adequately consented about the potential ultrasound risks and the state of benefits as acknowledged by objective assessment of the literature.
Assumptions about the technology’s safety allowed it to be grandfathered in to FDA clearance in 1976. Epidemiologic studies of ultrasound safety were conducted before 1992, and would have been representative of significantly less cumulative epigenetic burden to the fetus, as they predated changes to the childhood vaccination program and the flooding of our diets with genetically modified foods – all of which may synergize in a vulnerable child to contribute to chronic neurodevelopmental problems.
In the past several decades, ultrasound technology has evolved in terms of peak exposure and intensity (from 46 to 720 mW/cm2), and newer versions remain largely unstudied.
McClintic et al’s results corroborate existing findings that evidence concern for delayed learning and reduced hippocampal neuronal dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, as well as disrupted neuronal migration, a defect implicated in the pathogenesis of autism. Investigative journalist Dr. Jennifer Margulis has documented research including interviews with Dr. Manuel Casanova, a neurologist and neuroscience researcher, who discusses characteristic changes in gestational brain development in autistic children that can be produced by ultrasound exposure, as well as the epidemiologic overlap between escalating ultrasound exposure and autism incidence.
Randomized studies in humans point to potential increased incidence of low birth weight, delayed speech, poor school performance, dyslexia, and non-righthandedness.