title: The use of obstetrical ultrasound in the obese gravida.
abstract: Obesity is an epidemic in the United States, especially among the pregnant population. Obesity is responsible for an increase in fetal anomalies and adverse outcome of both mother and fetus. Due to difficulty in penetrating to the depth of the uterus, the ultrasound image in obese patients is inadequate, fuzzy, and high in artifacts. Hence, obese patients often require multiple scans as well as special scanning techniques just to get borderline image quality. These techniques and the data regarding quality and frequency of scans for the obese pregnant population are discussed in this paper.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Department of OB GYN, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Department OBGYN, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Electronic address: bbsono@aol.com.
authors.forename: Beryl
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Benacerraf
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D016216:Ultrasonography, Prenatal / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards
keywords: Fetal anomalies; Obesity; Ultrasound; Ultrasound technique