Fetal Echo?

Anyone ever have to have a fetal echo done? My high risk doctor is sending us for one because I was borderline diabetic before becoming PG so they're treating me as if I have diabetes. She said it can cause heart defects in the baby so she just wants to have a specialist look at the baby's heart to make sure everything is fine. What should I expect? When I made the appointment they said it's about 2 hours long.

Re: Fetal Echo?

I was sent b/c of my PCOS and the "great fear" that my BS were elevated in the beginning (even though I was still on Metformin and had an A1C of 5.1 at my 8 week visit ). So basically, I stressed myself out, it was a very long and annoying wait (Good Sam Specialty Peds) and after was all was said and done got the infamous "we couldn't get all the shots we wanted so you have to come back". DH and I decided against it. The level II was fine, there were no obvious abnormalities seen on the fetal echo, and I felt the anxiety had to be worse for me and so we just said thanks but no thanks! I think the high risks docs just do a lot of CYA and don't take all the pressure and anxiety they put on the parents into their thought process.

As for the test itself, it was a 45 min sono (over an hour wait first thing in the AM) focused on the heart, cord and placenta and I couldn't see a thing, she never let me see the screen. DH had a good shot so he got to see the lil chick pea at least!

Re: Fetal Echo?

DD#1 was born with a genetic heart defect so I had to have a fetal echo with DD#2. It was just like a looong sono. No worries

Re: Fetal Echo?

I had one with DS at about 22 weeks! It was great, a 2 hour sono of DS

They looked at everything but spent the majority looking at his heart. They were looking for a PFO and defects ... everything was fine.

Re: Fetal Echo?

I had 3 Fetal Echos with this pregnancy. Initially I was sent for one just because I'm having identical twins which is a high risk pregnancy.

The first Fetal Echo they said they couldn't get all the measurements they needed. The second one they said the babies had holes in their hearts so they sent me to Schneider's for a fetal echo with a ped. cardiologist.

Gratefully, the girls are both perfect.

Each of my fetal echos were about 3 hours (1.5 hour on each baby). Basically its just a really looooooong sono of the heart. They measure everything. It's actually pretty cool at all they can see. In the Level II you only look at the 4 chambers. With the fetal echo they check everything.

Re: Fetal Echo?

I had a fetal echo -- and the first thing the pediatric cardiologist said was that 9x out of 10 the people he sees each day, have no issues whatsoever. It's all precautionary more than anything else.

Now I had diabetes that was uncontrolled when I got pregnant, with very high sugar numbers the first few weeks...and they said the heart looked just fine and there was no issues.

I'm sure you're going to okay!

Re: Fetal Echo?

Posted by BaseballWidow

I was sent b/c of my PCOS and the "great fear" that my BS were elevated in the beginning (even though I was still on Metformin and had an A1C of 5.1 at my 8 week visit ). So basically, I stressed myself out, it was a very long and annoying wait (Good Sam Specialty Peds) and after was all was said and done got the infamous "we couldn't get all the shots we wanted so you have to come back". DH and I decided against it. The level II was fine, there were no obvious abnormalities seen on the fetal echo, and I felt the anxiety had to be worse for me and so we just said thanks but no thanks! I think the high risks docs just do a lot of CYA and don't take all the pressure and anxiety they put on the parents into their thought process.

As for the test itself, it was a 45 min sono (over an hour wait first thing in the AM) focused on the heart, cord and placenta and I couldn't see a thing, she never let me see the screen. DH had a good shot so he got to see the lil chick pea at least!