Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
survey the condition of the foetus, but it has also changed the general view
of the relation between the baby-to-be and the pregnant woman, and given
the woman an increasing responsibility for the health and wellbeing of the
expected baby (Petchesky 1987; Lupton 1999).
The routine ultrasound scan, as other tests included in the programme
designed for the surveillance of health during pregnancy, provides
information that is supposed to increase the security during delivery and
to detect deviancies in the woman's pregnancy and the expected baby's
development at an early stage (Swedish National Board of Health and
Welfare 1996).
3
Today, the routine ultrasound scan in Swedish maternity
health care is carried out in gestational weeks 15-20.
4
The main purpose
is to estimate gestational age, to detect multiple pregnancies and to localize
the placenta, information that is used primarily to increase the security at
delivery. The examination also offers opportunity to examine the foetus
anatomy to detect malformations, something that has increasingly become a
part of the routine ultrasound scan. Depending on more precisely when the
scan is performed, the examination can also give additional information, for
example about the sex of the expected baby. If the parents are aware that the
examination can show the expected baby's sex, they also have to deal with
the question of whether they want to ask for this information. The routine
ultrasound scan is thus a surveillance-practice that has become more and
more refi ned, as the capacity for early identifi cations of any deviancies in the
normal development of the foetus continuously increases (Swedish Council
on Technology Assessment in Health Care 1998).
At the same time as the ultrasound examination has resulted in a more
refi ned medical control and surveillance of the pregnancy and the baby-to-
be, it has also turned the experience of the expected baby into a more shared
and public experience. The ultrasound scan is now regarded a milestone
in parents' experiences of the pregnancy, and is also primarily looked
upon as a social event (Sandelowski 1994; Draper 2002). To parents, the
ultrasound image represents both a medical document and a photo of the
baby (Sandelowski 1994). The ultrasound image is often treated as a fi rst
photo of the baby, and the ultrasound examination as a fi rst encounter with
the new family member (Sandelowski 1994; Mitchell and Georges 1997;
Weir 1998).
The use of the routine ultrasound scan thus means that parents-to-be
can see images, moving images, of the expected baby at an early stage of
its development. Former generations of parents had only their own ideas,
imaginations, and the baby's movements to rely on. The fi rst contact with
the expected baby was then established when the woman started to feel foetal
movements, the 'quickening'. Today, the ultrasound examination seems
to result in a 'technological quickening', which might change the 'order'
through which parents establish a contact with the baby they are expecting
(Petchesky 1987; Georges 1996; Mitchell and Georges 1997).
