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By Lindsay Braun, Ivanhoe Men’s health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Over the last 10 years, the amount of radiation pregnant women and their unborn children are being exposed to has doubled. Experts believe this unprecedented increase is due to the heightened usage of radiologic exams.

“There’s an increase in X-rays in general in the population. We’re much more prone to look more closely with CT scans than we used to in the general population of medicine, and of course pregnant women are in the general population,” Alan Fleischman M.D., medical director of the March of Dimes told Ivanhoe.

This increased radiation exposure carries a small, but evident risk to unborn babies. “All radiation exposure has the potential to effect fetal growth and development. So we never recommend a routine X-ray or an X-ray that could be postponed until after the pregnancy,” Dr. Fleischman said.

Dr. Fleischman recommends pregnant women be leery of radiological tests that are suggested during their pregnancy. “It’s important for the women themselves to ask the question of their doctors, ‘is this needed?’“ said Dr. Fleischman. “One of the things that is critical is that we don’t do duplicative tests. Since we do not as yet in the United States, or anywhere, have electronic medical records to share information between doctors and Men’s health systems, it’s important that when a woman’s referred from one doctor to another doctor that she explain that she’s had certain tests and they not be repeated.”

Dr. Fleischman added, although unnecessary test are discouraged, there is still no reason that a woman should put off an important scan or X-ray that is vital to the mother or child’s Men’s health.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Alan Fleischman M.D., Annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, Nov. 25-30 in McCormick Place, Ill.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Aid / Disasters, Diabetes, Medical News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.