Screening in Pregnancy

The growth of babies in the womb and the development of their organs can be checked using high-frequency sound waves ("ultrasound").  This is often performed by a sonographer (or midwife) and sometimes by an obstetrician or cardiologist.

An ultrasound screening scan is not invasive.  The result is based on what is seen and interpreted, but not all problems can be detected by ultrasound.

In most births (96%), no problems are found.  However, every pregnancy has a small risk of an anomaly, so screening is a important consideration in every pregnancy.

IMAGE (above) an ultrasound profile of a baby >>

Do you have a family history?

Every pregnancy has a small risk of congenital heart disease and this risk increases slightly if there is a family history.

If you or your partner have congenital heart disease (CoHD), or have relatives with CoHD, or have had a baby with CoHD, then you have a family history of congenital heart disease.

If this is the case it is advisable for parents to have a full "fetal echo" (described below) and not just a screening test.

When to screen the heart

We recommend screening for congenital heart disease during pregnancy, at the routine "20-week" ultrasound scan, using a "5 View protocol" that aims to improve the detection of most forms of heart disease

1. In the UK, there is no programme for giving an echocardiogram to babies after birth, so this would be very expensive to set up and need thousands of new machines and new people to do it - costing millions

2. Detecting congenital heart disease after a baby is born can be difficult and may be life-threatening

3. There is already an extensive programme of scanning for congenital problems at around 20 weeks of pregnancy, so there is no need to create a new programme or find new resources - we can simply improve the current one, so this is very cost-effective

4. Detection before birth has many benefits - it allows better care of baby and mother before delivery, allows doctors to plan for a safer delivery in the right place at the right time

5. Finally, it is important to say that we support Pulse Oximetry (PO) in the newborn period, as this can detect some babies with CoHD that were missed at "20-week" screening and can be a cost-effective "safety-net";  however PO is not a replacement for good antenatal screening