Every pregnancy is a dream come true. Fetal medicine plays a crucial role in ensuring the health & well-being of the unborn child because every beat counts and every kick matters.
Early Detection of Fetal Abnormalities:
With the help of advanced imaging techniques and genetic testing fetal abnormalities like mental retardation, heart defects, brain defects, kidney defects or any other defects are diagnosed early in pregnancy and doesn’t appear as a shock to the parents on the birth of the child.
Risk Assessment and Counseling:
Every pregnancy is unique, some pregnant ladies have the risk of delivering early, and some have risk of developing High blood pressure or Diabetes in pregnancy. With the help of Fetal Medicine, the risks can be assessed early in pregnancy before it actually develops. This is very important in segregating the women at risk and not treating every woman on same principles. Rest is required only if woman has a short cervix, women with good cervical length can remain active throughout the pregnancy.
Similarly Aspirin or blood thinning injections can be started early in pregnancy to either prevent the development of hypertension or delaying the rise in Blood pressure and helping to reach 34 weeks safely, where survival of baby is ensured.
Unidentified Diabetes can increase the weight of the unborn child exorbitantly posing difficulty and risk of injury to mother and/or child during delivery and also dangerous fall in sugar levels of the baby after birth.
Antibodies in women with negative blood group having spouse with positive blood group may start destroying the blood of the unborn child and make it anemic, fetal medicine can check the level of anemia of the unborn child by checking blood flow
non-invasively and help in managing pregnancy by blood transfusion in utero and timing the delivery.
Monitoring Fetal Growth and Development:
Blood flow from the mother to the child is very crucial for the growth of the unborn child as it is the only source of oxygen and nutrition supply to the child. Mothers with thin arteries are unable to supply sufficient blood to the child, some scarcity is naturally compensated by a rise in blood pressure so that blood flow to the child increases but too high blood pressure can cause stroke/intra uterine death. Fetal medicine is a boon in such pregnancies, by assessing the state it can help in timing the delivery just before mishap.
Management of High-Risk Pregnancies:
Twin pregnancies and multiple gestations are on a constant rise, regular check-ups and follow-up by fetal medicine specialists can help in assessing growth and timing the delivery.
Interventional Procedures:
Some unfortunate couples have a child with lethal abnormalities with poor chances of survival after birth, in such cases the major concern is would the problem repeat in next pregnancy or the next child would be normal? Fetal Medicine can help in answering the questions by testing the genetic make-up of the unborn child.
Maternal-Fetal Bonding:
Visualizing the face and body of the unborn child develops a bond between the mother and the child even before birth which may be helpful in milk formation and breast feeding.
