What kind of ultrasound done at 12 weeks

Many expectant parents look forward to their first ultrasound. It can give you the first glimpse of you baby and strengthen the bond with your unborn child. Resist the urge to have non-medical ultrasounds done as souvenirs of your pregnancy. Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life.

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Ultrasound exams. Updated June Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Ultrasounds during pregnancy: how many and how often?

Updated September 18, Johns Hopkins Medicine. Combined first-trimester nuchal translucency screening. J Ultrasound Med. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellHealth. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data.

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Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Not all babies with an increased NT measurement have Down syndrome or any structural abnormality.

The extra fluid at the back of the head and neck usually disappears by 18 weeks. The fluid in itself is not an abnormality and does not harm the baby but may simply be the sign of a potential problem.

The baby is measured from head to bottom to determine the crown-rump length and the nuchal translucency is measured. The findings are then discussed with the patient. The combined NT result will provide the patient with a risk assessment. This will either be a high risk risk is greater than 1 in or a low risk risk less than 1 in As this is a screening test and not a diagnostic test, even with a low calculated risk, Down syndrome is not completely excluded and can still occur occasionally.

This is best done at 10 weeks, some two weeks prior to the NT scan but it can also be done just before or on the same day as the NT scan. If a pregnant woman wants to completely exclude a chromosome abnormality, then she should consider having prenatal testing with either a CVS or an amniocentesis.

Genetic counselling is also recommended. On the other hand, each woman, regardless her age, has a small risk of having a baby with a physical or mental handicap. The only way of knowing for certain whether a baby has a chromosomal anomaly or not, is to do an invasive procedure such as a chorionic villus sample or amniocentesis.

The most accurate, but most expensive, screening test for Down syndrome is non-invasive testing of fetal DNA. To refine the risk assessment, the nasal bone, heart rate and blood flow in a vein between the umbilical cord can also be evaluated. After the ultrasound evaluation, the risk of Down syndrome and other chromosomal anomalies trisomy 13 and 18 will be discussed with you.

Based on the risk assessment you can decide whether you would like invasive testing by mean of a chorionic villus sample or amniocentesis usually if the risk is higher than or non-invasive DNA testing. The risk assessment remains a screening test. Optimal conditions include a blood test done between 8 to 10 weeks and an ultrasound performed by someone with the specific training and whose ultrasound examinations are subject to independent quality contro l.

Although the blood tests are done previously, their results are only taken into account once the ultrasound results are available. The blood tests are most accurate when done between 8 and 10 weeks although they can be done until 14 weeks.