How often will I get an ultrasound in pregnancy?
At Sydney Babies, we scan your baby and give you pictures every appointment!
At Sydney Babies, we scan your baby and give you pictures every appointment!
In early pregnancy, you’ll be blown away how quickly your baby changes!! At 8 weeks, baby looks like a little blob with a heartbeat. By 12 weeks, baby will be moving its arms and legs and having a good wriggle.
Sydney babies refers to Sydney Ultrasound for Women and Ultrasound care for formal scans. These scans check your baby’s anatomy, growth, placental function and wellbeing.
These two external ultrasound providers also perform blood tests for chromosome testing (NIPT) and reproductive carrier screening. The NIPT is usually performed from 10 weeks and 5 days.
If you select the ‘gender’ box on the NIPT form, you can find out your baby’s sex from about 11 weeks (by blood test). At your 12-14 week anatomy scan, the baby’s sex can be determined about 60% of the time. By the 20 week anatomy scan your sonographer can tell you the sex of your baby for sure by checking its genitalia.
We recommend an early formal anatomy scan at 12-14 weeks. This scan will check major structures such as the baby’s brain/central nervous system, skull, heart and limbs. This scan can also be used to determine your risk of developing pre-eclampsia (a blood pressure disorder).
At 20-22 weeks, another external formal scan is performed. This is a detailed anatomy scan and takes around an hour. At this scan they can count the little bones in your baby’s fingers, check the baby’s kidneys, stomach and chambers of the heart. It is AMAZING to see the detail in your growing baby at the half way point!
At all subsequent appointments, Dr Porter will scan your baby. We have 3D and 4D (real-time) scanning facilities. Scan images can be sent directly to your phone (with sound for that fabulous heartbeat) via air-drop.
Sometimes babies cover their face with their hands, or kiss their placenta. If the face is obscured, or the baby’s head is low in the pelvis, sometimes it’s impossible to get a 3D image. We try our best!
From 28 weeks, as you enter the third trimester, your baby’s puffy cheeks are starting to fill out! I find the best time to get 3D pictures of your baby is from 28 weeks onwards.