Ultrasound may cut deaths in high-risk pregnancies

The review assessed a technology called Doppler ultrasound, which measures blood flow through the umbilical cord. Abnormal findings indicate that the fetus may be under stress.

Doppler ultrasound, done in the third trimester, is an established way to monitor high-risk pregnancies -- those complicated by problems like poor fetal growth or health conditions in the mother, such as high blood pressure and heart and kidney diseases.

Still, the benefits of such monitoring had not been entirely clear. There have been concerns that abnormal findings on Doppler ultrasound may prompt doctors to sometimes unnecessarily intervene -- by, for instance, performing a cesarean section.

But in the new review, researchers found that across 16 studies of more than 10,000 high-risk pregnancies, Doppler ultrasound testing was linked to a 29 percent reduction in fetal and newborn deaths.

Among women who did not receive ultrasound monitoring, 1.7 percent suffered a fetal or newborn death, versus 1.2 percent of women who underwent ultrasound.

The benefit seemed to stem from better decisions on C-sections and inductions of labor, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Zarko Alfirevic of the University of Liverpool in the UK.

He and his colleagues report their review findings in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, which is published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international research organization that evaluates medical studies.

In an interview, Alfirevic said that the evidence supports using Doppler in high-risk pregnancies where the mother has high blood pressure or the fetus is abnormally small. In these cases, the fetus may not be getting enough nutrients and oxygen through the placenta; Kazinform cites China Daily.

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