Baby's Story

Every time you go to see the doctor during your pregnancy you will be asked to do a urine test. Doctors use this test to establish the presence of glucose, which is an indicator of diabetes, and of protein in order to see if preeclampsia is a possibility.

Sonograms
The sonogram or ultrasound uses sound waves to create an image of the uterus and baby. Irradiation is not used and the procedure is safe for both you and the baby. The doctor will probably suggest you do the sonogram within the first three months of pregnancy. Often times this test is done in the vagina, which means that a special transducer is inserted inside the vagina. The image that is obtained with this technique is much more precise than the one done over the abdomen since the muscl

Some women worry if the sonogram done inside the vagina hurts the baby. Even though this is an understandable worry, it does not hurt the baby at all and is completely safe.

The sonogram will allow the doctor to determine several factors of the pregnancy such as:

• The probable delivery date. The sonogram will show if the fetus is a bigger or smaller size than what your last menstruation indicates. If the size of the crown is over three or four days off with your probable delivery date, the doctor might adjust the delivery date. In order to determine the probable delivery date an sonogram that is done in the first three months of pregnancy is much more accurate than those done afterwards.
• The fetal viability. At five or six weeks of pregnancy, this test will detect the fetus’s heartbeat. Once the heartbeat has been identified the risk of abortion goes down considerably. Before five weeks of pregnancy, the fetus itself might not be visible and this test will only show the gestational sack.
• Fetal abnormalities. Before twenty weeks of pregnancy although it is not common a complete sonogram test is done in order to detect structural abnormalities in the fetus, there are some problems that can be seen in the eleventh or twelfth week. A good part of the brain, marrow, extremities, abdomen and urinary conducts can be seen by doing this test inside the vagina. Additionally when there is an enlargement in the back of the neck of the fetus it can indicate a greater risk of certain genetic dysfunctions or of the condition of the chromosomes.
• The number of fetus’s. This test will also show the doctor if you are pregnant with more than one fetus. It will also show the membrane that separates them as well as the location of the placentas, and it helps to indicate if the babies are sharing one placenta or if they are separate.
• The state of the ovaries. This test can also show if there are any abnormalities in the ovaries. Sometimes this test will show a small cyst, which is a cyst that forms in the place where the ovule was liberated. In the course of three or four months it goes disappearing gradually.
• The presence of fibromas. These are benign growths of the muscle
• The placement of the pregnancy. Sometimes the pregnancy occurs outside of the uterus.