MRI in pregnancy is no joke (MRI Scan In General)

Member Name: zerub

Product:	MRI Scan In General
Date:	14/03/09 (288 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They might be able to find out what's wrong with you

Disadvantages: Or they might not

I wanted to write about MRI scans because they are usually something that you know you are going for in advance, and the thought of them scares quite a lot of people.

I had an MRI when I was 26 weeks pregnant, to try to ascertain whether I had placenta accreta or not. That is when the placenta implants wrongly into the wall of the womb, and will not detach after the birth.

They asked me to remove my bra and all my jewellery. Then a nurse went through a questionaire with me, of the "just checking" sort where you are supposed to answer "no" to every question - did I have any metal pins in my body, was I pregnant, etc. This last question made us both snort with laughter as she read it out, since clearly I was.

Then I went into the MRI room and lay down on my back on a thing like a doctor's couch. They put a big black weight cloth thing over my tummy which was rather uncomfortable - I'm guessing it was to shield the baby. I had ear defenders on, and a button to hold. The button was to press if I needed to be brought out of the machine; just holding it made me less nervous. Then they slid me into the tunnel.

There were loud speakers in the tunnel so they could talk to me, and I could talk back and they could hear me. It wasn't dark, although not very bright. The top of the tunnel was quite close to my face which I found difficult - I shut my eyes and pretended I was sunbathing on a beach.

The scans lasted 2 or 3 minutes each with a pause in between. In the pause they told me what they were doing next. The scans were very loud in spite of the ear defenders.

The hardest thing was lying on my back for 30 minutes at 26 weeks pregnant - the baby was constricting the nerves and blood vessels that it was pressing on, and I started to feel dizzy and short of breath. The last scan they did was one where they wanted me to hold my breath, and I had to tell them that I just couldn't - they should have done that one first!

My baby kicked the whole way through so I knew he was ok!

I had the scan on the Thursday and got the results on the Monday. I imagine that was faster than usual because I was an in-patient. The results were inconclusive - they'd already seen what they though was an accreta on an ultrasound scan and they thought that the MRI confirmed it, but weren't sure. There is too little MRI data for this condition.

As it turned out, the MRI results were wrong. I had my baby 7 weeks later, and I did have accreta (percreta actually, a more severe form) - but not in the place where they thought they had seen it.

But hopefully the data from me will help them next time.

The low rating is because - well, who'd want an MRI? It wasn't horrific, but when they were thinking about doing another one a month later, I said I didn't think I could handle it again.

Summary: Not as grim as it might have been