Hello Listers, Happy 2002 . The following article to add to your files to enable those you serve to make more fully informed choices and those involved in the application of this technology to do so with greater awareness. A mothers deep intuition which develops accutely the more she travels within to commune with her baby has been proven to have no adverse side effects love Rachana
Subject: Ultrasound scans may disrupt fetal brain development 17:56 10 December 01 Ian Sample Ultrasound examinations may disrupt normal brain development in unborn babies, say Swedish scientists. They have urged mothers-to-be to avoid unnecessary ultrasonic scans, but not cancel routine examinations. "Ultrasound is misused at times," says Helle Kieler of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. "There are a lot of ultrasound examinations performed which are not needed." Some mothers even seek videos of ultrasonic scans just to keep as mementoes, says Francis Duck, chairman of the European Committee for Medical Ultrasound Safety at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, UK. Kieler's team studied a group of Swedish men born between 1973 and 1978. Nearly 7000 had received ultrasonic scans in the womb, while 170,000 had not. Kieler found that of the men born between 1976 and 1978 who had ultrasonic scans in the womb, 32 per cent more than expected were left-handed. In an average population, around nine per cent of men are left-handed. The scientists took account of factors such as premature birth, birth weight and maternal age, but admit that they cannot rule out post- natal environmental influences for the effect they found. The results suggest that some men who genetically would have been expected to be born right-handed had actually grown up to be left-handed. Kieler says this could be due to a disruption of their brain development in the womb: "It's commonly known among neuropsychiatrists that right-handed people can become left-handed by slight damage to the brain." Wider window She says it is significant that the effect was only found in men born in 1976 and later. That year, it became common in Sweden for expectant mothers to have two ultrasonic scans - one after 17 weeks of pregnancy and another after 37 weeks. Currently in the UK, women typically have one or two ultrasonic scans during pregnancy, although more can be recommended to track a particular condition in the fetus. In a study published in 1999, Kieler found that handedness of girls was not affected by ultrasound. The difference, she says, could be down to the way the brain develops in each sex. "Brain development in males takes place over a longer period compared with the female, so there's a wider window for external factors to have an effect," she says. Vibrating bubbles How ultrasound could affect the brain is still a mystery though. Kieler suspects that a process called cavitation - where small bubbles in the body fluids vibrate in the ultrasonic waves - could influence brain development. "In the early stage of pregnancy, neurons migrate from the centre of the brain and this could be disturbed by ultrasound, maybe by cavitation," she says. "This is a big gap in our knowledge," says Duck. "If ultrasound is having this effect, we have to take it seriously, but right now, we just don't know what is going on." Duck adds that ultrasonic scans are needed to track fetal development and to check for abnormalities. "It would be inappropriate for people to start cancelling their appointments, but this ought to act as a real stimulus for more work on this," he says. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991670 -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
