If ultrasound destroys sperm, why is it safe for a fetus?

[ensho]

http://www.naturalnews.com/028853_ultrasound_fetus.html


(NaturalNews) Ultrasound is extremely damaging to the health of any unborn child (fetus). The natural health community has been warning about ultrasound for years, but mainstream medicine, which consistently fails to recognize the harm it causes, insists ultrasound is perfectly safe and can't possibly harm the health of a fetus.

Now, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a project that aims to temporarily sterilize men by blasting their scrotums with ultrasound. The burst of ultrasound energy, it turns out, disrupts the normal biological function of the testes, making the man infertile for six months.

Ultrasound, in other words, contains enough energy to temporarily deaden the testes and basically destroy sperm function for half a year. So why is it considered "safe" to blast an unborn baby with the same frequencies?

Ultrasound is loud. It no doubt causes tissue disruption and damage in a fetus, and it certainly creates stress and shock for the baby. And yet conceited yuppie parents just can't get enough of it! They want to SEE a picture of their little baby before it's even born, so they subject it to tissue damage and ultrasound trauma in order to get a snapshot they can show off to their yuppie friends. Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to medically necessary ultrasound that has a reasonable justification concerning the health of the mother of the baby. What I'm strongly opposed to is ultrasound used to take pictures of the fetus or to satisfy the curiosity of the parents. This "recreational" ultrasound is extremely selfish, conceited and may pose a very real danger to the health of the baby.

-snip of how the fetus is harmed-
----------------------

before I even knew of the above I was against ultrasound.

[Recursion]

1. Now there's a scientific argument

Ultrasound is loud. It no doubt causes tissue disruption and damage in a fetus, and it certainly creates stress and shock for the baby.

It "no doubt" causes tissue disruption and damage in a fetus.

Wow, that's convincing...

[trotsky]

3. That would be par for the course...

when it comes to scientific reasoning in Natural News.

[FarCenter]

2. Wouldn't it depend on the power level?

If ultrasound is intense enough to cause cavitation, it does harm.

Ultrasound has been used for years in lithotripsy to break up kidney stones and gallstones.

[Warpy]

14. It does depend on the power

Abandoning ultrasound as a diagnostic tool would be tragic, it's the only way to diagnose things like neural tube defects and anencephaly in utero.

To suggest that an equivalent sound pressure is administered in a fetal ultrasound and lithotripsy is ignorant, at best. It's to suggest one can fry an egg on a heating pad because both the heating pad and the kitchen stove work by generating heat.

[Brickbat]

4. "Conceited yuppie parents" -- nice.

:eyes:

[Statistical]

10. Yup. As if there is no medically valid reason for ultrasound.

It is just a photo snapping machine for yuppie parents.
Why I saw an ultrasound fetus photo booth at the local mall.

The OP kinda ignores all the medical checks done by Doctor with data from ultrasound to ensure the baby is developing properly.
Then again that is only science. Can't have any of that stupid science.

Just let nature take care of everything. It was so much better when roughly 2% of babies died in late term pregnancy and in childbirth. Lets go nature.

[AngryOldDem]

13. My last two pregnancies were high risk.

Ultrasound played a huge role in keeping track of how they were developing, including knowing when it was safest to deliver. (Yes, even the deliveries had to be scheduled.)

The happy days of oohing and ahhing over cute ultrasound photos pretty much ended for me with those two. "Conceited yuppie parents" my ass.

Like anything else medical, the benefits should be weighed against the risks and decisions should be made accordingly.

[enlightenment]

16. Your last sentence is the point that should be stressed.

If there is a medical reason for a diagnostic procedure, then it should be considered.

But there are plenty of those parents who want monthly images of their spawn for no other reason than having the imagery. I've met them - and it never even occurs to them that it's not quite the same as a Polaroid.

Back in the dark ages, when I had my child, the doctors would schedule an ultrasound at about six months gestation to check for problems. I remember that they were concerned about the palpated head circumference of my kid . . . turned out he just had a bowling ball for a skull (ouch). Unless there were issues, that was it. A one time shot - and no one suggested you could take home a picture of your fetus.

Then they started offering ultrasound as a bonus - get a peek of little Janey or Johnny in utero - we'll give you a print out you can carry in your wallet. Then they came up with those 3-D images - seems to me they have to insert something up the vaginal canal to get those pics, don't they (or have they progressed from that) ?

The technology is important - the reasons why it is implemented are often not. I don't know about safety concerns, but tend to think that, as with most things, moderation is better than excess.

[Dorian Gray]

20. I'm in the same situation right now

High risk pregnancy. I see a peri-natal specialist who uses ultrasound regularly as a diagnostic tool. I am sure that the benefits outweigh the risks immensely.

But what would I know? I'm just a conceited yuppie. LOL!

[Dorian Gray]

19. Seriously....

that stuck out at me, as well. Cause on the conceited and yuppies are given ultrasound technology when they are pregnant. LOL.

[cbdo2007]

5. Yeah, our ultrasound tech said to avoid them completely in the third trimester

if you can. There really is just no need for it in most cases.

[Robb]

6. Water should be outlawed!

When I drink water from a fire hose, my mouth hurt for days after!!1!1

[Recursion]

7. It's like saying "radiation kills people so don't use microwaves"

Then again, Natural News is probably anti-microwave too.

[ensho]

8. we shouldn't use microwaves either

nt

[Statistical]

11. Ok that is like saying radiation kills people so avoid the earth

(and bricks, and bananas, and sleeping next to another radioactive person).

[Orrex]

22. We shouldn't use the Earth either.

At least, not without Her permission.

[dropkickpa]

30. Or go in the sun!! There's radiation out there too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[xultar]

9. Cuz sperm is man juice and man juice is weak shit.

:hide:

[Brickbat]

12. I've got a sore throat.

It hurts to laugh. Put a warning on that next time, willya?

[HuckleB]

15. This is a more scientific take on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-j8D_nwaFs

[MineralMan]

17. Thanks for posting that satirical pseudo-scientific article.

I needed a good laugh this afternoon. :rofl:

[Dorian Gray]

18. What the hell?

This is the most ludicrous argument I've seen against ultrasound. It's all supposition.

[MineralMan]

21. But it's NATURAL!

Doncha see? It must be true...since the website has "natural" in its name. :eyes:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

24. Let's not use an important tool like ultrasounds because it's dangerous. Now hand me some raw milk!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. Well if a guy with no scientific or medical background says it, who am I to argue?

[moriah]

25. Ultrasounds are for more than just detecting birth defects.

Anecdote time:

Way back in 1980, ultrasounds were not routinely used. Mom was not considered high-risk -- she was only 28, she had an easy delivery with my older sister, and didn't smoke, drink, or do drugs while pregnant with me. I was two weeks late, and Mom had been having very severe Braxton-Hicks contractions for three weeks prior. But that's pretty normal. She hadn't had any bleeding or spotting during those three weeks.

This was in the day of fathers sitting out in the waiting room, not being in the delivery room. My father and my grandfather were sitting there, watching TV and trying not pace the floors waiting. After several hours, one of the doors to the waiting room flew open, and the OB who was on call that night for the clinic Mom went to ran up to Dad and handed him a paper and pen. That doctor was an immigrant from Korea, and normally spoke very clearly with little accent, but he was talking *really* fast and the only words Dad could make out were "transfusion", "surgery", and "sign".

Dad signed, and the doctor yanked the paper out of his hand and ran back out of the waiting room through the other door. My grandfather reached into his shirt pocket, got his bottle of Valium (he had spasmodic toricollis, it was prescribed as a muscle relaxer back then), and handed my father a 10mg tablet. He said, "Here, I think you're going to need this" -- and then took two himself.

The way Mom tells it, she was alone in the delivery room. My grandmother was at home taking care of my older sister. She felt a sharp pain that was different from the contractions and some wetness, and thought it was her water breaking. She hit the call button, the nurse came to take a look and screamed. It wasn't just her water breaking -- she was hemorrhaging, and the nurse could see the umbilical cord in the vaginal vault.... not prolapsed, but ruptured.

We both made it, and were damn lucky. We both required blood transfusions, and they knew I had been without oxygen for at least four minutes. They told my parents there was a high likelihood that I would have brain damage. Why? The placenta had attached in the lower part of the uterus, fairly close to the cervix. The cord was not attached properly to the placenta, it was pretty much only connected with blood vessels and more to the membranes, and those vessels crossed over part of her cervix. When her water broke it ruptured the vessels, detached the cord from her placenta, and the placenta started to abrupt. That's why we were both bleeding. She had vasa previa as well as marginal placenta previa.

-----

Cord accidents kill a lot of kids, and placenta problems kill a lot of women as well as their babies. When vasa previa is diagnosed by ultrasound before birth, there is only a 4% probability that the baby will die. The fetal mortality rate for undiagnosed vasa previa has ranged from 56% to over 90% in various studies. But it is easily detected by color Doppler ultrasound or the "3-D" ultrasound. Ultrasound can detect placenta previa as well, but early in pregnancy the false-positive rate is very high. In order to detect most cord and placental conditions, an ultrasound must be done in the third trimester. Vasa previa occurs in 1 out of every 3000 births, placenta previa is a 1 in 200 risk, but neither are associated with other fetal abnormalities and there are few reliable blood markers or risk factors to use to predict them.

Ultrasound is the best way to detect both conditions, and both are easily managed by scheduled Cesarean delivery. Ultrasound can also detect true knots, nuchal cords, and other cord problems. No medical procedure is ever 100% safe, but when more than one in 3000 babies are dying from ultrasounds, I'll join the crusade. Not until then, tho. They save lives. I was damn lucky to not be dead or a vegetable.

[Dorian Gray]

27. Damn good

and illustrative anecdotal story. Thanks for sharing that with us. Placental Previa is nothing to sneeze at and can be very dangerous if you have the condition in the 3rd trimester. Glad that you came out of your very early trauma quite well!

[moriah]

28. My parents said....

... that if I was brain damaged, they were grateful -- I was a very precocious child and got myself into enough trouble as it was. (Nearly burned the house down before age 3 trying to make my parents breakfast in bed. Put butter on bread, put the bread in the toaster... wow, flames! I remember being really frustrated that unplugging the toaster didn't make the flames go away -- it made the TV turn off, after all.... put the flames out with my sister's wet bathing suit, dug the toast out of the toaster with a fork, and took it in to my parents, rather proud of myself for overcoming the minor obstacle. Heh.)

It's why I have a keychain that says "Imagine what I could do if I had all my brain cells" -- my father gave it to me about six years ago.

Placenta previa can kill both mother and child, and is more common, but velamentous cord insertion and associated vasa previa is harder to detect. Most cases of placenta previa cause bleeding in late pregnancy, but as I said, Mom's placenta previa was marginal, not complete, so that's why she didn't bleed. Only an ultrasound can detect vasa previa or velamentous cord insertion, it's a completely silent condition, and if it's not detected before the water breaks the baby can bleed to death very quickly.

[Dorian Gray]

29. You know, I didn't know the difference

between Vasa previa and Plancental Previa, so thanks for the heads up. (I'm pregnant now and am interested in these things.)

Love the keychain.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

26. Oh boy, Natural "News" strikes again

Whaddya get when you add two piles of bullshit and hysteria to your anecdote pie? A Natural "News" story.

If you take what Natural News says at face value, then you're going to have problems later on when the Vitamin D doesn't cure your skin cancer or Zinc your HIV or etc.