Posts Tagged Gender check

Trisdesonographophobia – abnormal fear of 3D ultrasounds

As Friday the 13th comes around the corner, many people are talking about triskaidekaphobia, or  fear of the number 13.  You may have even heard of the terms, paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia, which refer to the fear of Friday the 13th.  But there is a far more insidious fear that specifically affects some pregnant women.  It is trisdesonographophobia (pronounced TRIS – dee – SON – o – graf-o- fobia) – an irrational fear of 3D ultrasounds.

Of course, there is nothing to be afraid of with 3D ultrasounds.  3D ultrasound uses the same sound waves as the ultrasounds used in your doctor’s office, and the safety of ultrasounds in general have stood the test of time, over 35 years without any known harmful effects.

There are a few other fears regarding 3D ultrasounds besides safety concerns.

For couples who do not want to know the gender of the baby, there is a fear that seeing your baby will reveal the sex of the baby.

There is no way to tell the sex of the baby just by looking at the baby’s face on 3D ultrasound.  If you request to not find out the gender of your baby, your appointment will be especially flagged and our entire staff will make sure to not discuss the gender. Also, if the technician needs to put the ultrasound probe in that specific region, such as may be necessary to get a better angle, our technician informs the mom to look away and our technician looks away as well! This way, our ultrasound technician won’t accidentally reveal the gender of your baby by referring to your baby as he or she.  At First Peek Ultrasound, you can rest assured that you have nothing to fear of 3D ultrasounds if you do not want to know the sex of your baby.

The fear that your baby will look like an alien

Babies do look fish-like, alien-like, or, the term we prefer, embryonic, when you are very early in your pregnancy.  Although we can generally determine the gender of your baby as early as 15 weeks, if you are coming for the purpose of seeing and bonding with your baby and getting good pictures of your baby, we do not recommend you come in before 17 weeks, and preferably after 20 weeks.  The ideal time to come in for pictures is between 24 and 30 weeks.

To get a general idea of what your baby may look like at each stage of pregnancy, check out our 3D ultrasound gallery to see a week-by-week breakdown.

The fear that your baby will not be cute

Don’t worry.  Every mom thinks their baby is cute.

The fear that you may find out something wrong

Our 3D ultrasound sessions are not medical, so we do not do any diagnostic evaluation.  If we do happen to see something, we will notify you and your doctor. If you did not get a call from us, then we did not notice anything wrong, but this does not mean that your baby has a clear bill of health.  It is important for all pregnant women to get proper prenatal care and a medical diagnostic ultrasound as may be indicated.

The fear that you can not afford it

This is a very common fear among pregnant women regarding 3D ultrasounds – that 3D ultrasounds are too expensive and that they will not be able to afford it.  At First Peek Ultrasound, you have nothing to fear.  Our 3D ultrasound packages start at $39, and our most popular package, the First Peek Package, is only $59.  (Prior to First Peek Ultrasound’s existence, a similar package in Chicago would have been at least $100.)

Have you experienced trisdesonographophobia?  What are some of the fears you had regarding 3D ultrasounds?

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Latest WikiLeaks entry reveals secret of local pregnant woman

WikiLeaks leaks secret mystery inside the womb:  You’re having a girl.

It is no secret that WikiLeaks, the largest source of leaks on the internet, comprises mainly of embarrassing military secrets.  But it could come as a surprise that among the 2,000+ pages of unconfirmed reports and hush-hush innuendos that comprise Wikileaks, there are some secrets that are more of a personal nature.

Since, at least as it was originally planned, anyone can leak anything onto the website, “Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it,“ you would expect to find even more mundane and personal things leaked, such as a surprise birthday party that  your friends are trying to arrange for you.

One local Chicago pregnant woman was surprised to find out, during her weekly perusal of WikiLeaks, that she was having a girl.

I was about to receive a 3D ultrasound at First Peek Ultrasound next week, and I had told them that I definitely did not want to know the gender of the baby.  I don’t know how the technician could have known I was having a girl even before my ultrasound session.  Now I look onto WikiLeaks and it turns out the whole world knew even before I did that I’m having a girl.

The PR spokesperson at First Peek Ultrasound, a 3D ultrasound studio in Oak Park, IL, stated that

No one at First Peek Ultrasound was responsible for the leak.  If the customer does not want to know the gender, we do not even look at the gender.  The leak could have been put forth by a family member or any other secret service agent.  The report is unsubstantiated and may be wrong anyway.

The standard operating procedure, or SOP for short, for gender check determination procedures at First Peek Ultrasound itself was leaked at WikiLeaks by an anonymous Chicago 3D ultrasound blog.  According to the WikiLeaks entry, the technician asks if the pregnant woman wants to know if it’s a boy or a girl.  If she does not want to know, the technician herself will turn her head away when getting close to the region where you can tell the gender and will instruct the pregnant woman to do likewise.  Thus, there is no chance that the technician will slip up by referring to the baby as he or she during the session. She also warns the customers to look past the section on the DVD recording that may reveal the gender.

Many pregnant woman try to keep the gender of their baby a secret to family and friends even after they find out at First Peek Ultrasound.  However, the sex of the baby usually slips out during innocent conversations, such as when discussing the future plans for the baby.

“My mom noticed I was no longer worrying about whether I should have my baby circumcised or not if it’s a boy, and so she soon guessed that we knew it was going to be a girl,” one Cicero pregnant woman confided to us.

“When I gave in and chose a blue teddy bear for the baby heartbeat package, my sister immediately guessed I was having a boy, and we hadn’t even left the First Peek studio yet.  I was like, ‘No! Pretend you don’t know yet! I haven’t even told Mom and Dad yet!’ ” – a customer from Evanston told us during an anonymous interview.

Gender can be determined as early as 15 weeks at First Peek Ultrasound, and can be leaked onto Facebook pages as early as 15 weeks as well.

If you do not want to know the sex of your baby, feel free to get your 3D ultrasound at First Peek Ultrasound.  Your appointment will be specially flagged in our scheduling system and our entire staff will be notified before your visit, and great care will be taken to not show you or tell you the gender of your baby.  At First Peek Ultrasound, you can rest assured that your uterine secrets will not be leaked.

Also, some customers choose to not want to know the sex of the baby but want the results to be placed in an envelope to be opened later with family.  This can be fun for your whole family.

Nothing is 100% until your baby is born, but with our Gender Check Guarantee, you can come back for free until we can determine the gender of your baby with reasonable certainty.

How have you leaked the gender of your baby to others?  Did you plan it in a ceremony or did it slip out in conversation?  We’d like to hear any interesting stories of how you told others the gender of your baby.

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Ob/gyn Hypocrisy Regarding 3D Ultrasounds-Part 2

In part 2 of my slowly advancing series, I will explore the often repeated argument that the ultrasound machine is a medical device and should not be used for non-medical purposes.  This is the stated position of the FDA and is what many ob/gyn doctors repeat to their patients.

So what falls under a non-medical purpose?

1. Seeing your baby

2. Determining if your baby is a boy or a girl

Yet a few hospitals in the Chicago area have 3D ultrasound machines in their ob/gyn clinics, and after the patient is done with her appointment, the doctor will quickly switch over to 3D mode and show the baby to the mother.  (This quick add-on period is added onto the medical ultrasound session which normally lasts 30 minutes.  In other words, the ultrasound session now exceeds the 30-minute threshold touted by the ob/gyn community.)

Also, it must be pointed out that ob/gyn doctors routinely check the gender of the baby at the 20-week ultrasound.  If the gender can not be determined at this time, the insurance company usually does not pay for an additional ultrasound.  The pregnant woman can sometimes plead for the ob/gyn to check the gender at another visit, ”off the record,” as my wife did when she was pregnant, or she can wait another 20 weeks not knowing whether her baby is a boy or a girl.

Ob/gyn physicians who happen to have the privilege of having a 3D ultrasound machine in their hospital often go against the rules and perform 3D ultrasounds off the books, as they have done in the past by checking the gender on extra ultrasound visits.

If 3D ultrasounds used for non-medical purposes were truly harmful and if there was truly a consensus among ob/gyn physicians that these elective ultrasounds are harmful, there would not be this growing trend of ob/gyn clinics and hospitals, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, to offer free 3D ultrasounds during routine screening visits of  their pregnant patients.  In fact, many of these ob/gyn clinics are starting to offer these 3D ultrasounds as a “free” service in order to attract more patients, sometimes also offering CD’s and DVD’s of the session.  By offering it for free, it appears that they are providing a service with no economic benefit out of the goodness of their heart, yet the economic benefit for these clinics from the increased number of patients is very real.

In other words, the argument currently held by most ob/gyn physicians is that elective non-medical 3D ultrasounds are harmful to pregnant women and their babies and is an affront to the medical profession and an embarrassment to the profession of ultrasound technicians, unless it is provided off the record by ob/gyn physicians in ob/gyn clinics or hospitals for their own economic benefit.  It’s fine if we do it, but no one else should do it.

This hypocrisy can only be explained by my overall premise that the current bias against 3D ultrasounds among ob/gyn physicians has nothing to do with the concern for pregnant women or their babies but has to do with money, which is a rerun of the routine elective circumcisions performed by ob/gyn’s without informed consent in the 1970′s while rabbis were prohibited from performing circumcisions without a medical license (remember that?).

(Of course, there are many other ob/gyn physicians and ultrasound technicians who are genuinely concerned for the welfare of their patients and have only had the misfortune of having been taught this bias in school and in residency training and so they have carried this bias as well.  But the source of the bias is still originally based on economics.)

Please note that this is a risky subject to deal with head on, as there is a genuine risk of sounding angry and at odds with the medical community.  As a pediatrician myself, I definitely do not want to alienate other physicians or sound like I know better than ob/gyn physicians when it comes to dealing with pregnant patients.  I simply want to point out this one isolated instance of a medical bias based on non-medical reasons.  Please note that at First Peek Ultrasound, we have a very good working relationship with the physicians and midwives of our customers, and more and more physicians are actually actively referring their customers to us.   In this series, I am only speaking about some ob/gyn physicians.

When we first started First Peek Ultrasound, the majority of ob/gyn physicians were deeply against 3D ultrasounds.  Also, it was very difficult to find good ultrasound technicians due to the fact that these technicians are taught in school that 3D ultrasounds are definitely harmful to babies (which is untrue) and other related falsehoods.  Now, we are seeing that the percentage of ob/gyn physicians  in the Chicago area who are against 3D ultrasounds have dropped (roughly to about 50%), and this is in part due to many of their patients coming to see us and other 3D ultrasound centers and reporting their experiences back to their physicians.

For our physicians who want to learn more about what we do, please visit our dedicated 3D ultrasound page for Chicago-area physicians and midwives.

Do you have any comments? We especially want to hear from ob/gyn physicians, the ones who agree and disagree with what I have posted here.

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3D ultrasound for Father’s Day

This Father’s Day is June 20, 2010.
A gift certificate for a 3D ultrasound makes a perfect gift for Father’s Day.

As a first-time father, I was amazed to see my baby while my wife was still pregnant.  The 3D ultrasound really helped me become more involved with the pregnancy and with the whole bonding process.  I was stationed in Iraq during the entire time my wife was pregnant, so I missed a lot of the milestones of the pregnancy:

  1. The first ultrasound
  2. The first episode of vomiting
  3. The first pregnancy argument about nothing
  4. Choosing  a name for your child
  5. The baby shower
  6. The first stretch mark
  7. Finding out if it’s a boy or a girl

So it really helped my morale when I saw my baby’s pictures and DVD of my baby’s movements before he was born, and it gave me something else to look forward to when I came home.

We started First Peek Ultrasound for all our expectant fathers out there as well as for the expectant mothers.

For all you pregnant women who are wondering what to get him for Father’s Day, or even whether to celebrate Father’s Day if you’re still pregnant, I urge you to get him a 3D ultrasound. It will be as much a Father’s Day gift for him as it will be for you.

Hint: If you get the Premium Plus Package, the prenatal massage comes with the package.  So you can tell him the 3D ultrasound is a Father’s Day gift for him, but you can enjoy the prenatal massage as well.  Hey, you can’t help it–it’s included!

For all you Dads out there, how was your experience seeing the 3D ultrasound of your baby. I would love to see your comments below on how you especially benefited from the 3D ultrasound experience as an expectant father.

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3D Ultrasound Checklist

3D Ultrasound Checklist

  • Fetus
  • Friends
  • Family
  • Toys and books for other kids
  • CD of music you want playing in the background of your DVD (optional)
  • Cell phone (to call friends and family immediately when finding out if it’s a boy or girl)
  • Kleenex (in case you or Dad get emotional)

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Is it a boy or a girl?

Ultrasound has been about 95% accurate in determining if it’s a boy or a girl. What other “tests” have you done to find out if you are having a boy or a girl? The crazier the better. What has your success rate been?

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