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UK Wedding News

30/09/2014

Additional Scans Could Save Babies' Lives

A leading obstetrician has said more than half of stillbirths in the UK could be prevented if the NHS was to offer women additional scans.

Speaking to Panorama, Professor Kypros Nicolaides said if women were offered Doppler scans around 1,500 babies could be saved each year.

Currently, more than 3,000 babies are stillborn in the UK. It is said to be one of the worst rates in the developed world.

Doppler scans measure blood flow between the placenta and foetus. Many deaths are caused by a failure in the placenta, which can restrict the flow of blood to the baby, starving it of essential nutrients and oxygen.

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Quite often, the problems can occur towards the end of the pregnancy in mothers who have had no previous problems. If an issue is identified however, the baby can be monitored carefully and delivered by Caesarean before the placenta fails.

This could be spotted by a Doppler scan, but per national guidelines, a majority of hospitals only use them on 15% to 20% of women deemed to be high risk.

Professor Nicolaides runs a clinic at King's College Hospital in London, and all pregnant women who attend his clinic are offered the scans at 12, 22 and 32 weeks of pregnancy.

Speaking in the BBC Panorama programme, which was broadcast on Monday night, Professor Nicolaides said: "We have demonstrated through extensive research that you can identify more than 90% of those cases from the 12-week assessment.

"We can easily avoid them and we can do so through very simple adjustments in the way we deliver antenatal care."

The Department of Health said it has asked the professor to submit his research.

(JP/CD)

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"A leading obstetrician has said more than half of stillbirths in the UK could be prevented if the NHS was to offer women additional scans."