Amniocentesis has been done longer than ultrasounds have been available. Some insurance will not pay for ultrasounds used for this purpose as it is clearly unneeded because they were not always used. Some doctors did not change their practice after ultrasound was available and some of those taught others. OBs practive for a very long time.
As for how they do it: They use other means to locate the fetus, such as feeling for it and stethescope and then they jab. Many doctors view the ultrasound for targeting as unneeded due to their skill and an added expense for the patient to bear.
Close, but not quite, as that definition could apply to a number of different groups of Orthodox Jews. (I like to think I’m not living a 17th century lifestyle, even though I’m not a Lubavitcher…)
More specifically, Lubavitchers are a group of Hasidim who follow the teachings of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
I’m sorry, I haven’t had the time to research this for you. I have an “off the top of my head” guess, but I’d rather not state until I have a chance to look into it further.
However, (regarding Lubavitchers), I am a poster on a Lubavitch message board. On that board, there was much talk that they prefer not to do even routine ultrasounds (let alone amnios). However, others in that thread mentioned that if it is deemed medically necessary, one can be done.
I’ve billed radiology services for quite a while, and I have never heard of an instance where guidance of any kind of needle procedure was denied. Moreover, neither of my OBs would dream of doing amnio without imaging.
I guess it’s just me, but I’d want some sort of imaging guidance. It’s not that I don’t trust my OB’s skill, it’s that too many things can happen.
We did ultrasounds and amnio with our first child. We chose not to with our second? Why not: first, we eschewed all drugs and medications during both pregnancies. As far as anyone knows, ultrasounds are harmless. But a lot of things that were once upon a time considered harmless have since been found to be harmful, or are considered to be possibly so. Since we had agreed that realy, no matter what might be found via amnio or ultrasound, we’d still have the baby, we didn’t really see the point. Our OB group didn’t push on this. No one was able to counter with any information or statistics that somehow ultrasound has presented more healthy babies. So we didn’t see the stress, or any possible, be it ever so slight a chance, harm that an ultrasound might cause to be worth it. That said, this was in the days before the SDMB. If anybody has a cite that is counter to this I’d love to see it.
Granted, this is probably not the reasoning for the Lubavitcher opposition to ultrasound, just another reason.
There are studies that show that more ultrasounds are correlated to more IUGR (Interuterine Growth Retardation).
There is also a study specifically on heart defects. It showed that babies that had their defects detected by ultrasound fared no better than those with undetected heart defects, even when the results were matched for severity. Undetected defects were operated on a few days later than detected defects. However, babies with detected defects were typically born early by c-section and some had issues with prematurity. Also, many defects were undetected by ultrasound, therefore, if there is any risk to the fetus from the ultrasound, it was for nothing, diagonsis-wise.
In the case of spina bifida, early detection is of some benefit. Avoiding the trama of a vaginal birth can prevent possible injury to the exposed spinal cord. Also, the fetal sugery can sometimes prevent further damage, but risks serious prematurity.
I have heard of a few cases of surgery for an incomplete diaphram. Because the presence of the gut organs in the chest prevents growth of the lungs, surgery to correct the diaphram is potentially life saving. Most things though, it’s just one more thing to worry about in late pregnancy. Do you really think a few more weeks will really help you prepare for a child with down’s syndrome?? I’d take a few more weeks to blissfully imagine my child as president of the united states. My choice, though.
I would suspect that 99.9% of women have ultrasound in their pregnancy, even if they don’t think they did. The doppler heartbeat monitor is ultrasound based. It is almost always used in doctor’s offices and in labor to detect the fetal heartrate.
I don’t find it neccesary, but it’s not the line in the sand I want to fight over. I’ll save that battle for inductions.
The fact that I was only allowed two ultrasounds during my pregnancy ( I was active duty air force when I was pregnant), has been somewhat of a sore point with me.
At my four month ultrasound, baby was doing well. At my two-weeks-past-my-due-date ultrasound, baby was 10 and a half pounds and breech. I was only allowed the second ultra sound because I had developed high blood pressure and baby didn’t want to get out.
Dr’s tried to turn him around to no avail ( how could they?) but my baby was born via C-section because of his breech position (and size). Dr. Sun told me that if I had been given an ultra sound earlier, they may have been able to see that he was breech and to turn him around before he got too big, and I could have had him normally.
Now I don’t know that my son would be any healthier today if he had been born vaginally (because he’s pretty freakin’ healthy), but I wouldn’t have had to go through quite a major surgery if 1) my ob-gyn(s) had had the expertise to be able to tell by feeling my belly that he was breech or 2) I’d been given another ultrasound, and it would have been quite plain.
I got the answer from Rabbi Moshe Krasnanski of Chabad Lubavitch in my e-mail today.
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So, it’s legally permissible under Jewish law for a woman to undergo ultrasound and amniocentesis; some oppose routine ultrasound on the basis that the effects on the fetus are unknown.
(BTW, the mikvah is a ritual bath undertaken for purification. A Niddah is a woman who is bleeding, and who is considered unclean until she goes to the mikvah.)
My sister has had sevral more ultrasounds since my last post in this thread and another test revealed that the baby is more than six pounds by now. The doctors have moved her due date up to the week after Thanksgiving.