baby scan

[Mr Weir]

Simple question to end a friendly disagreement!

 

What is the earliest a women can have a baby scan ie minimum age that a foetus shows up on a scan?

[LucreziaBorgia]

Six to seven weeks from the date of the last period - at least from what I saw on a Obstetric Ultrasound FAQ.

[blind_otter]

At 4/5 weeks they can see the fluid sac that the baby will develop in, and it is only a few millimeters in diameter.

 

So I'd venture to guess it would probably not show up until 6-8 weeks, depending on the fetus and the shape of the woman's uterus.

[LittleMiss]

Six weeks is the earliest.

[quankanne]

I wonder how far along in the pregnancy she would need to be before the baby could be detected in one of those 3-D scans? That'd be pretty cool to track its development that way ...

[Stone]

I had one a few weeks ago at 7 weeks 3 days. the baby was visible but with high focus

[Teag]

I had one when I was 5 weeks preg & you could see the little peanut is what I called it with a beating heart.

[Matilda]

I also had an ultrasound done at 5 weeks with my twins. You could see the 2 sacs with two jelly beans inside them. You could also see the heartbeats. This was done with a vaginal ultrasound.

 

 

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,9851,00.html

The fetal heart

The embryonic heart starts beating 22 days after conception, or about five weeks after the last menstrual period, which by convention we call the fifth week of pregnancy. The heart at this stage is too small to hear, even with amplification, but it can sometimes be seen as a flickering in the chest if an ultrasound is done as early as four weeks after conception.

 

http://www.parentsplace.com/expert/midwife/qas/0,,239702_100131,00.html

A normal intrauterine pregnancy may be demonstrated by abdominal "pulse echo sonograpy" after only four to five weeks since the last menstrual period (LMP) -- about the same time that most urine tests turn positive. After six weeks, the small white gestational ring is so characteristic that failure to identify it raises doubts about the pregnancy. By careful scanning, distinct echoes from the embryonic poles can be demonstrated within the gestational ring by seven weeks after the last period. Fetal heart must be observed by the eighth week, or the pregnancy is in serious doubt.

[meanon]

In my first pregnancy it was visible at six weeks on ultrasound. In my second it wasn't and I was re-scanned at 7 weeks when I saw the heart beat clearly.