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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