The rise in unregulated pregnancy scans

Some high-street clinics are putting lives at risk by allowing unqualified non-specialists to carry out pregnancy scans, an industry body has warned.

Demanding new regulation, the Society of Radiographers (SoR) said that anyone using an ultrasound machine can call themselves a sonographer and offer the service to mothers-to-be.

Dangerous advice

The SoR says these unregulated scan clinics sometimes offer “dangerous” advice. Pregnant women have been “incorrectly diagnosed with serious health conditions”, or told an “abnormality” meant they would need to end the pregnancy, “only to find their baby was completely healthy”, said the BBC.

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A former hospital sonographer said one woman who was eight or nine weeks pregnant was referred for an induced miscarriage by a private clinic, which had told her there was no heartbeat for the baby and that the baby was “very, very malformed”. The woman was “in tears” as the NHS scan began, said the sonographer, but the process actually revealed a “beautiful nine-week pregnancy with a heartbeat”. The baby was “absolutely fine”, said The Independent.

The lack of regulation means that “major foetal abnormalities” such as spina bifida or polycystic kidneys can be missed, while potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, where the fertilised egg implants outside the womb, may not be picked up.

An SoR spokesperson said that although there were some “really great” private scanning services with correctly trained staff, she was concerned about the growth of pop-up clinics in shopping centres and on high streets, which sell souvenir images or scans to reveal the baby’s sex.

The union is calling for sonographers to have a “protected” job title, which could only be used by those with qualifications and who are registered with a regulatory body. People “don’t realise that anybody can buy a machine and call themselves a sonographer”, said the SoR president and a hospital sonographer, Katie Thompson.

Maternal fears

Some expectant mums choose to go to unregulated clinics for baby scans for a variety of reasons. Private scans are “often sold as a reassurance, souvenir or sexing” procedure, said the BBC.

Some mothers-to-be want detailed 3D/4D images or videos of their baby that hospital scans don’t offer. Or they are keen for a “gender reveal” earlier than the one usually offered by the NHS at the second routine 20-week scan.

Sometimes, people go private early in their pregnancy because they are anxious about their baby and want extra reassurance while they wait for the first routine NHS scan at 12 weeks.

Unregulated clinics are “making money out of maternal fears”, said Eva Wiseman in The Guardian. The fact that “now it is possible to witness, with your eyes, some proof of a future, is seductive”, and it’s “no surprise that private scanning businesses are multiplying”.