Any radiographers/ultrasound people around?

[SL]

At a 20 week scan during pregnancy, given that this is the time when the function of the baby's heart is looked at in depth to check that there are four chambers and they are developing correctly, would you be able to detect if the heart is on the wrong side of the body?

[Lois]

Yes you should be able to tell. The main reason it wouldn't be accurate is if mum is fat.

[The_Doc]

SL said:

At a 20 week scan during pregnancy, given that this is the time when the function of the baby's heart is looked at in depth to check that there are four chambers and they are developing correctly, would you be able to detect if the heart is on the wrong side of the body?

The condition you describe is is either Dextrocardia, or the rarer Dextrocardia Situs Inversus.

I would have thought the accuracy of a 20 week scan for this was quite poor. You'd need to wait longer in gestation, but then why would you be looking? Bearing in mind the 20 week scan can be the last one performed in an uncomplicated/asymptomatic pregnancy, and Dextro/Situs are usually asymptomatic.

[SL]

Thank you both.

The_Doc said:

The condition you describe is is either Dextrocardia, or the rarer Dextrocardia Situs Inversus.

I would have thought the accuracy of a 20 week scan for this was quite poor. You'd need to wait longer in gestation, but then why would you be looking? Bearing in mind the 20 week scan can be the last one performed in an uncomplicated/asymptomatic pregnancy, and Dextro/Situs are usually asymptomatic.

My daughter was born with various complications, including her heart being on the wrong side of her body.

While she was in the NNU, every paedeatrician who spoke to me expressed surprise that I hadn't known anything was wrong with her before she was born (and it wasn't leading questions from me - I tended to get comments like "So, as you were prepared for these problems before she was born so you'll know blah blah blah", when obviously I wasn't as I thought I'd had a normal pregnancy). My consultant also said he thought the radiographer should have picked up some of the problems, including the heart defect.

I know that Doctors are trained differently to radiographers therefore I wanted to know from a radiographers point of view.