Increasing numbers of couples from across the Maritimes visit private sonogram clinics in the United States for three-dimensional ultrasound photos of their unborn babies. They can’t get photos of their unborn babies at home, because most Canadian hospitals refuse to perform non-medical ultrasounds, often because of the cost.
Nova Scotians Tracey Gray and John Boulay were especially eager to learn the gender of their baby. “We really wanted to know, to prepare for the baby’s arrival,” said Gray.
The Isaak Walton Killam Health Centre in Halifax wouldn’t tell them the baby’s gender, nor would it give them an ultrasound photo as a keepsake. Like many Canadian hospitals, IWK says it can’t afford the time and money. It reserves the procedure for use in high-risk pregnancies.
Then Gray and Boulay heard about a sonogram clinic in Portland, Me. and made arrangements to have the procedure there. For slightly more than $200 (US), they got some photographs and a DVD of their baby – a girl – in action.
Shortly thereafter, the CBC showed their suppertime audience the DVD of Gray’s baby. The 3-D images were vastly superior to the earlier ultrasound pictures.
“See, she has your nose and my lips,” smiled the mother, as the child moved around gracefully, almost seeming to pose for the camera. “Oh, she’s sleepy,” her parents chuckled, as the infant yawned and squirmed. It was almost hard to believe she was still within her mother’s womb.
Ultrasounds can be – and have been – used as the basis of a decision to abort an “unsatisfactory” child, that is, one with genetic anomolies. But it is also possible that this improved 3-D process, sonography, can further the pro-life cause, for no one seeing Tracey Gray’s unborn baby could have the slightest doubt that this winsome little being was a human child.
In the meantime, no studies have been done that definitively prove the safety of these procedures. Some suggest a possible link between ultrasound and some later medical conditions in the child.
So in British Columbia, the governing body for doctors says ultrasounds should only be used to get information relevant to a patient’s care. Both the American Medical Association and Health Canada recommend against unnecessary exposure to ultrasounds, including exposure for trivial and non- medical reasons.
Even so, the demand for non-medical ultrasounds continues to grow and private clinics are appearing in various Canadian centres. One is scheduled to open in Halifax later this year.
