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WEDNESDAY, April 22 (HealthDay News) -- Overweight and obese women are less likely to receive an accurate reading from ultrasound screenings aimed at identifying fetal abnormalities, new research reveals.
Such screenings also seem to be less effective among women who are diabetic prior to their pregnancy.
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"We were asking the question, 'Are birth defects less likely to be detectable with prenatal ultrasound in women who are overweight or obese, compared with women of normal body-mass index,'" explained study author Dr. Jodi S. Dashe, who works in the department of obstetrics & gynecology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
After analyzing more than 10,000 standard ultrasound exams -- the most common exam for low-risk pregnancies -- as well as more than 1,000 specialized ultrasound exams for high-risk pregnancies, Dashe found, "that the detection of fetuses with major birth defects dropped significantly as maternal body-mass index [BMI] increased: a difference of at least 20 percent when women of normal body-mass index were compared with obese women."
The findings are to be published in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
To explore the degree to which ultrasound results are sensitive to BMI, the study authors looked at a total of 12,200 ultrasounds previously performed at the medical center between 2003 and 2007, among women entering their 18th to 24th week of pregnancy.
The majority of both standard-risk and high-risk pregnant women were Hispanic (about 87 percent), with about 10 percent participants being black and 2 percent being white.
Stacking ultrasound results up against both the mother's BMI and infant discharge records, the research team noted the 20 percent weight-linked plunge in ultrasound effectiveness. That translated into a significant rise in risk that a child would be born with a major birth defect despite the fetus having appeared normal during an ultrasound.
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