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Patients prefer 3D ultrasound Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Colleen McElhenny of Medford can see a clear image of her unborn baby's face on Rogue Valley Medical Center's new three-dimensional ultrasound machine. Nurse-midwife Betty Kay Taylor (right) can turn the image to view it from many angles. Three-dimensional ultrasound pictures help expectant parents see how their baby develops during pregnancy. By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune For Colleen McElhenny, the proof is in the pictures. Pictures of the 20-week-old fetus in her belly. A fetus that's still too small to give her a reassuring kick. Pictures of a flawless face and a perfectly formed spinal cord. McElhenny lay on an examining table and watched the pictures roll across a computer screen while nurse Betty Kay Taylor rubbed her abdomen with an egg-shaped wand connected to the computer. Taylor's tool beamed sound waves into McElhenny's womb. The computer transformed the sound-wave patterns into three-dimensional images of the fetus. "It's very reassuring to see it moving," said McElhenny, who's carrying her first child. "I'm at the point where I'm not showing much. Being 38 years old all kinds of things can happen. It was very helpful for (husband) Bryan (Kirkpatrick) and me to see the baby's healthy." Reassuring anxious parents is one of the most useful features of 3D ultrasound, said Dr. Bryan Sohl, a perinatologist at Rogue Valley Medical Center's maternal/fetal medicine clinic. RVMC began offering 3D ultrasounds in early December. Providence Medford Medical Center also has equipment to do the procedure. "It helps patients more than it helps me," Sohl said. "It's really good in terms of communicating what's going on to patients. It's a lot better instrument for carrying information to the parents about a fetus. ... I can really reassure them with a 3D image. "We can show them a spine perfectly formed at 20 weeks." In two-dimensional ultrasound, physicians view fetal anatomy as cross-sectional planes, similar to slices within a loaf of bread. Doctors mentally translate the two-dimensional slices into three-dimensional volumes to assess the health of the developing fetus. "Those pictures mean a lot to me," Sohl said, "but (patients) don't know what they're looking at. Patients are taking my word when I tell them something." Two-dimensional ultrasound images have been notoriously difficult for expectant parents to interpret. "I've had lots of 2D ultrasounds, and I'm still trying to figure out what they mean," said Jennifer Sandoval, a Central Point mom entering the home stretch of her fifth pregnancy. "They're still confusing to me and I'm on baby number five. "You have to be a medical person to be reading those." Three-dimensional ultrasound machines operate in two different modes. They can make a series of pictures of the fetus and save them for the physician to study; or scan the womb in real time, displaying live images of fetuses yawning, rubbing their eyes and moving around. "It's pretty much fun to play with," said Taylor, a certified nurse midwife. "The patients like it, so we like it, too." Sohl said the vivid, true-to-life images also can help parents cope with the disappointment of an abnormal pregnancy. Seeing a fetal abnormality such as a cleft lip makes it real for the parents. "There's such a premium in our society on having a perfect baby," Sohl said. "There's an expectation that every baby will be perfect, but between 1 and 2 percent will have some abnormality." Knowing early on about a fetus's developmental problems also gives parents time to ponder whether to ask for genetic tests that could determine if the baby has additional abnormalities "A cleft lip often is the canary in the coal mine," Sohl said. "It can be a clue to other problems." "What they can tell me here may be important in deciding where I deliver," said McElhenny, the expectant mother. Parents who face a difficult birth may choose to deliver at RVMC, which has Southern Oregon's neonatal intensive care unit, or have the baby at some other big-city hospital that provides more support for difficult births. Money for RVMC's new 3D ultrasound machine came from the Children's Miracle Network. Sohl said the machines typically cost about $260,000, but the manufacturer, (which was about to be acquired by General Electric) sold it for about 40 percent less than the suggested price to help reduce its inventory. Sohl said 3D ultrasound also has some gynecological applications. Physicians can locate abnormalities such as fibroids or polyps within the uterus. "With 3D you can better differentiate a polyp from a fibroid. ... and reduce the need for diagnostic surgery." Taylor, the nurse who operates the ultrasound machine, says learning to read the images takes some practice, especially during the early stages of fetal development. The pictures often look best at some distance from the computer screen. Uninitiated parents think they need to be right up against the screen to see the details. "Patients get up real close," she said. "You have to tell them, 'No, no, no, back off.' " Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.