What is an Ultrasound Scan?

What is Ultrasound?

Ultrasound scans use high frequency sound waves, which are beyond the human range of hearing. The ultrasound waves are completely safe. You won’t hear or feel anything during the scan, and there is no risk that the ultrasound will harm you or your baby, if you are pregnant.

How Ultrasound Works

When you visit The Birth Company clinic for an ultrasound scan, we will use a state of the art ultrasound machine to produce images of your internal organs.

• The probe attached to the main machine sends out ultrasound waves, which can pass through your skin and into your body.
• The sound waves bounce off some of the organs and tissues inside your body, sending back echoes that are picked up by the ultrasound probe.
• The probe is connected to a machine that can turn these echoes into pictures. It works a bit like the echolocation used by bats and dolphins.
• The images created from the ultrasound waves will appear on the screen so that you and your sonographer can take a look at what is going on inside your body.
• The images will move as the probe keeps sending out ultrasound waves and collecting the echoes to show us what is happening in real time.

Why We Use Ultrasound

Ultrasound scans are an important tool for obstetrics and gynaecology. The scans can give us valuable information about your health that we can’t get without taking a look inside you. We can use ultrasound to monitor your baby’s growth and development during pregnancy. We can also use them to diagnose gynaecological problems, monitor your condition, or assist with fertility treatment. Various types of ultrasound are available for different purposes. We can even perform 4D scans to get very realistic pictures of your baby.