I can't speak personally but a very close
friend of mine had several scans done
while she was pregnant (one was at 20
weeks I think) and she was warned that
there was a very small chance her baby
could be damaged but that they really
couldn't tell in what way. She had to
have the scans done because there was a
chance she'd have a brain haemmorrage.
As it was, her little girl is now nearly 2
years old and perfectly fine.
I found this at
:http://www.Hps.Org/publicinformation/ate/
q374.Html
.Q: I am
in my eighth week of pregnancy. In the
beginning of my pregnancy, around two
weeks, I had some abdominal x rays and a
ct scan done of my abdomen. I've read
that the damage from the abdominal x ray
is minimal, but what about the ct scan?
What possible damage can occur (if any)
from that?
A: we told the person asking this question
that the conceptus dose from such a ct
examination is between 12 mgy and 30 mgy
(1.2 rad and 3 rad) according to exposure
of the pregnant patient to diagnostic
radiations, (medical physics publishing,
madison, wisconsin). However, we
cautioned her that the precise dose
depends on the machine and techniques
used, the size of the patient, etc. We
pointed out that the national council on
radiation protection, 1977, said: "the
risk [of abnormaility] is considered to be
negligible at 5 rad or less when compared
to other risks of pregnancy, and the risk
of malformations is significantly
increased above control levels only at
doses above 15 rad. Therefore, exposure
of the fetus to radiation arising from
diagnostic procedures would very rarely be
cause, by itself, for terminating a
pregnancy." we suggested that she get
specific information on the dose to the
conceptus from the procedure she had and,
that if she had any further questions, she
personally contact our expert on radiation
exposures during pregnancy. Her reply to
us was: "thank you so much for the
information! I feel very reassured. I
was searching all over the web looking for
information on cts during pregnancy and
found nothing until I found your site. "
genevieve s. Roessler, phd
editor, hps web site
speak to your doctor if you are worried.
Best of luck!
