What are specialists looking for when they perform the fetal echocardiogram?
Dr. Rychik: When we do a fetal echocardiogram, we’re looking at identification of the various chambers of the heart and the size of those chambers. The heart is not a static structure – it’s dynamic, it’s beating – and in the fetus, it beats anywhere from 130 to 150 times a minute, so one is looking at movement of the structures, movements of valves, as well as blood flow through those different structures. We can also, with current technologies, look at and characterize the velocity of blood flow through the different chambers of the heart, and that provides very important information in letting us know as to whether the blood flow patterns are normal or abnormal. How long have specialists been able to get this kind of information? Dr. Rychik: Fetal echocardiography is a continually growing field. We’ve been able to look, in a very primitive way, at the basic structures of the heart for about 20 years or so, but it’s really just in the last five to 10 years where technology has advanc
