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Grimaces, grins, yawns, cries: 3D/4D ultrasound captures fetal behaviors

  UNIVERSAL CITY, CALIF. -- Three-dimensional and four-dimensional ultrasound images may signal the birth of a new medical field of study: that of fetal behavior, Dr. Stuart Campbell predicted at a meeting of the Obstetrical and Gynecological Assembly of Southern California.

"We know more about the development of monkeys than we do about human fetal behavior," said the director of London's Centre for Reproduction and Advanced Technology.

In performing hundreds of 3D/4D ultrasounds, Dr. Campbell has encountered a few surprises himself. For example, there was the time a mother looked at the screen and commented that her fetus was blinking.

"The first time, I said, 'No, it's dark in there,'" he recalled. However, he then turned to see the fetus opening and then closing its eyes in a manner compatible with blinking. He demonstrated the behavior in a digital recording of such an examination.

Other recordings demonstrated fetal grimaces, grins, yawns, cries, grasps, finger play, and thumb sucking.

Fetuses even appeared to play with their umbilical cords like jump ropes and used their mothers' wombs as platforms for trampoline-like jumps. He has recorded fetuses making step-like movements at 12 weeks, yawning at 15 weeks, pressing their fingers together at 17 weeks, and opening their eyes at 18 weeks.

Advanced 3D/4D techniques can be helpful in examining a fetus for the presence of cataracts or cleft lip, or even a cleft palate--by obtaining a cross-sectional, reverse view of the fetal face.

The downside is that the life-like images also offer parents an early and very vivid look at a fetus with anomalies.

"Sometimes they see it at the same time you see it," noted Dr. Campbell. "With 2D, there was never a mother, ever, who spotted an anomaly as soon as I did."

Asked whether he thought learning about an anomaly in this way might emotionally damage parents, he said his impression is that they are able to confront the truth and accept it before delivery.

BY BETSY BATES

Los Angeles Bureau

COPYRIGHT 2004 International Medical News Group
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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