Guest
Frangelle,
You are worried about the risk of your baby being harmed by radiation from the radioactive element injected into your bloodstream for demonstrating your lung function on a scan. As I have said, I'm no expert, but I looked this up for you as you're clearly worried. Here's what I found out (from the radiation safety division of a university).
Firstly, to work out the risk to the fetus - the test you use is a combination of (a) gestational age at exposure and (b) the radiation dose. Well, your baby is in the third trimester. At the level of most diagnostic procedures, the radiation dose received by the baby is less than 10 rem. There is no evidence supporting the increased incidence of any 'deleterious developmental effects on the fetus' at diagnostic doses within this range.
Also, background radiation is all around us - from PCs, microwaves, TVs etc. and the annual amount we receive from these sources could add up to more than one medical procedure anyway. Radiation affects body cells, BUT our body cells constantly replenish (replace themselves). The only organs in our body that don't regenerate are the eyes and reproductive organs. This means that the riskiest thing about radiation is that it might affect fertility, but according to this research, the dose you have received for the purpose of your scan is low, the baby will have received even less of that and he is already well developed, so what little radiation he has been exposed to should not affect his future fertility.
I hope that this has reassured you, but it's natural to worry. Ask any woman on here who is pregnant and I bet we all secretly worry about something being wrong with our babies.
Seek reassurance from your m/w, but I think baby will be fine!
xxxx
You are worried about the risk of your baby being harmed by radiation from the radioactive element injected into your bloodstream for demonstrating your lung function on a scan. As I have said, I'm no expert, but I looked this up for you as you're clearly worried. Here's what I found out (from the radiation safety division of a university).
Firstly, to work out the risk to the fetus - the test you use is a combination of (a) gestational age at exposure and (b) the radiation dose. Well, your baby is in the third trimester. At the level of most diagnostic procedures, the radiation dose received by the baby is less than 10 rem. There is no evidence supporting the increased incidence of any 'deleterious developmental effects on the fetus' at diagnostic doses within this range.
Also, background radiation is all around us - from PCs, microwaves, TVs etc. and the annual amount we receive from these sources could add up to more than one medical procedure anyway. Radiation affects body cells, BUT our body cells constantly replenish (replace themselves). The only organs in our body that don't regenerate are the eyes and reproductive organs. This means that the riskiest thing about radiation is that it might affect fertility, but according to this research, the dose you have received for the purpose of your scan is low, the baby will have received even less of that and he is already well developed, so what little radiation he has been exposed to should not affect his future fertility.
I hope that this has reassured you, but it's natural to worry. Ask any woman on here who is pregnant and I bet we all secretly worry about something being wrong with our babies.
Seek reassurance from your m/w, but I think baby will be fine!
xxxx
