After pregnancy, pregnant women need to follow the doctor's instructions and undergo regular check ups at the hospital, including fetal and personal physical examinations. Some pregnant women are preparing for the examination, so are 4D and cardiac ultrasound done together?
Four dimensions and cardiac ultrasound are not performed together. Typically, fetuses require four-dimensional ultrasound as a routine procedure, but not necessarily cardiac ultrasound. Four dimensional ultrasound, also known as 4D color ultrasound, can provide a three-dimensional display of various aspects of fetal development through ultrasound examination, enabling early diagnosis of fetal abnormalities. If there are abnormalities in the four-dimensional examination of the fetus, it is recommended that the fetus undergo echocardiography.
Generally speaking, 4D ultrasound is suitable for examining fetuses at 12 to 30 weeks of gestation. However, 4D ultrasound is more appropriate for fetuses at 24 to 28 weeks of gestation, and the resulting images will be more clear. If abnormalities are found in the fetus during four-dimensional ultrasound examination, specialized cardiovascular ultrasound physicians may be asked to perform echocardiography and perform anomaly screening on the fetus.
Cardiac ultrasound, also known as echocardiography, is the preferred examination method for congenital heart disease. It mainly checks whether there are abnormalities in the morphology of the heart and whether the heart function is normal. Generally, fetuses between 18 and 28 weeks of gestation will undergo echocardiography only after the four-dimensional ultrasound examination shows abnormalities. The time required for cardiac ultrasound is relatively short, usually just a few minutes, and it has little impact on the health of the fetus and pregnant women.
