About pregnancy ultrasound
Diagnostic ultrasounds during pregnancy are a routine part of antenatal care and provide important information to your antenatal care team about the health and development of your unborn baby. Alana Healthcare is an accredited practice under the Diagnostic Imaging Accreditation Scheme Standards (DIAS), so you can feel assured that you are receiving highly specialised ultrasound care.
For more information about pregnancy ultrasound please see the Consumer Fact Sheet created by the Australian Commisson on Safety and Quality in Healthcare.
Routinely Recommended Pregnancy Scans
- First trimester ultrasound (dating scan): The First Trimester Ultrasound or “dating scan” scan helps to provide accurate dating of the pregnancy and confirm that the fetus is developing normally with a heartbeat. Usually performed between 7-11 weeks, ideally 8 weeks. If you have not had a scan performed prior to your first visit at Alana Obstetrics, we will perform this for you.
- Nuchal Translucency ultrasound (NT scan): Also called the 12 week Scan or First Trimester Anatomy Scan, this ultrasound scan is performed at 12-14 weeks of the pregnancy and assesses your risk of having a baby with chromosomal abnormalities such as Down Syndrome. In addition to the ultrasound a blood test will be performed, the results of which are added to the calculation. The result that will be discussed with you is a risk of abnormality, and will be expressed as a number eg 1:10, 1:200, 1:10000. Based on your risk further testing can be performed if necessary. As this is a specialised ultrasound we recommend that you attend a specialised Obstetric and Gynaecology Ultrasound practice to have this performed.
- Morphology scan (19-20 weeks): This scan takes a detailed look at your baby’s anatomy from head to toe including organs, as well as growth, and the placenta and your cervix. Because it involves a detailed examination of your unborn baby, this scan can take a while depending on how co-operative your baby is being on the day! The placental location will also be assessed in this scan. If you wish to find out the sex of your baby, this is the earliest scan that can tell reliably whether you are having a boy or a girl.
Growth scan
Growth scans are an additional diagnostic scan that your Alana Obstetrician may recommend later in the pregnancy if there are any concerns about your baby’s growth or wellbeing, or if you have other risk factors. Your Alana Obstetrician will discuss this with you should this be the case. If recommended, the growth scan will usually occur around 32-34 weeks. This can be performed either in-house at Alana Healthcare or you can have the scan at a specilisted Obstetric and Gynaecology Ultrasound Practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ultrasound can take high quality images of many parts of your body, which makes it an excellent diagnostic tool. During pregnancy, an ultrasound is recommended for a number of reasons:
- For confirming the age of the baby and to predict the due date;
- To look at the baby as it develops throughout the various stages of pregnancy;
- To screen for chromosomal and other abnormalities (such as Down syndrome).