4D Scans From A 4D Baby!

- AS FEATURED ON THE BBC

I started A 4D Baby in July 2005 with the intention of making 4d scans more affordable for people like me, having not been able to afford to have it done when I was pregnant with my first daughter. I also wanted to offer the best service possible, in a warm welcoming friendly atmosphere. We try very hard to make sure your experience is a special one, if you have any comments good or bad please let us know. I'm glad to say that more and more centres have opened so the price has come down and you should now be able to find one in your area, although I must say a thank you and acknowledgement to those who have made incredibly long journeys (Swansea, Bristol, the New Forest etc) as they specifically wanted to come to us.

Since we opened in 2005 we have had some perfectly behaved babies who have given us incredibly clear pictures straight away, which you see on the website, some who have played hard to get and whose mums had to do lots of walks until they gave in and gave us some good pictures and some very laid back babies who did not want to move at all and had to come and see us again another day! Of over 1000 babies only 4 or 5 have completely defeated us and have not shown us their faces even when re-scanned, one baby stayed in a bombing position from 11am until 4pm! If your baby is shy and we cannot get a picture of your babys' face at your first scan don't worry as we will offer you, as we always have done since we opened, a free re-scan. Unfortunately we can only offer re-scans during the week, due to Saturdays being our busiest day. All the babies featured on the website are ones we have scanned and appear with the kind permission of the parents. We have been featured on a BBC3 series in the autumn of 2006, called Making Babies, you may have seen us!

I understand that sometimes 4D scans of babies look a bit odd or obscure, this is because of how the imaging works. Every babys' nose looks enormous from the front, and when they are born you will see they have very little noses, so it is really not that they have inherited their nose from the Romans or a Boxer!! Sometimes the cord is in front of the face and can make a mouth or nose look very big, sometimes they have their face too close to the womb wall or placenta (especially if the placenta is on the anterior wall) and this makes the picture fuzzy, also their hands and feet can get in the way of the face. We can to some extent "technically remove" what is in front of the face but it is a bit like focusing a camera and sometimes the features go out of focus. We all know that if someone takes a picture of us close up to our face it doesn't look good, this is a similar thing.

It is very rare to get a grumpy face, most babies look incredibly content and we get smiles and yawns from them. If you don't want to know the sex of the baby there are two options. One, we concentrate only on the face and head, at your request, or if you want the whole baby scanned, including hands and feet, we scan the whole baby but there is a risk that you might see the sex (if it is a boy!). The fact is babies move, boys can be quite obvious and on some occasions the face is between the legs and the bottom can be seen. Having said that, of those who didn't want to know the sex probably only 1% have seen that they are having a boy and of those who did find out I think I'm right in saying (let me know if I'm not) that they enjoyed the experience so much that at the end of the day it really didn't bother them that they saw.

We use the GE Voluson ultrasound machine, favoured by the majority of scanning studios and also used at our local hospital. The scans we do are self elected, non diagnostic bonding scans, in other words we don't do medical scans. We continue to do, what some clinics call a "well-being check" which shows you the position of the baby, the heart, the stomach and the bladder. We have fully qualified sonographers and a Dr of clinical radiology who perform the scans. In the unlikely event that there is a problem with your baby our staff will liaise with your doctor or midwife on your behalf, although I must point out we are not specifically looking for any abnormalities. Because we take our responsibility to our clients very seriously we closely follow the British Medical Ultrasound Society Guidelines for Non-Diagnostic Scanning. This means we have physically lowered the output levels on our Voluson 730 Pro, currently we are the first and only Studio to have done this. Also, according to BMUS Guidelines we do not do 4D Scans on foetus' under 12 weeks and we only use qualified staff to carry out your scan

Martlesham:
The Premises	Dr Mahmood
Huntingdon:
The Scanning Room	The Reception Area