Early / private pregnancy scans - advise please

[KateEmily3]

Hi all,

I'm seven weeks pregnant and looking into early and private pregnancy scans, mainly for additional reassurance as this is my first pregnancy. I know that most private scans would be a duplication of what the NHS will cover off but wondered if anyone had any advice about whether to go for them, and what to go for specifically? There's so much information out there, it's a bit of a minefield. Thank you!

[Lowamh]

You can get an early private scan - it’s called a reassurance scan. You could try an IVF clinic or have a look on Groupon to see if there’s any pregnancy scanning places in your area, you can often also get a discount code 20% off). They will look for a heartbeat and yolk sac, the only difference might be an IVF clinic or NHS clinic would be more likely to do an internal scan at 7 weeks. A private scan place would probably do external so you’d go with a full bladder. It will say on their website x

[KateEmily3 in reply to Lowamh]

Thank you! X

[Turtle07]

Hi, I went for a reassurance scan when I was around 7/8 weeks pregnant as I felt like I would just stress out waiting until the NHS scan wondering if everything was ok. Mine was an external scan so just needed to go with a full bladder and they just check to make sure everything has implanted where it should and to check for the sac and a heartbeat. They also told me how far along I was but at that point it's not quite as accurate as the 12 week scan. It's pretty basic and as the baby is still so small you don't see much of anything at all but knowing there was a heartbeat just helped to put my mind at ease until the 12 week scan. X

[KateEmily3 in reply to Turtle07]

Thank you! X

[Arya10]

Congrats!!!

I’d definitely recommend the private scans for reassurance. We’ve had 2, and it would have been 3 - I had a scare at 9 weeks and the NHS gave me an early scan then, otherwise I would have booked a private one round that time.

We had a gender reveal scan at 16 weeks, then a mini 4D scan at 26 weeks as well as the usual 12 and 20 week NHS scans. I’m now 28 weeks and if I don’t get any more NHS scans we’ll definitely go private again to check on him.

I’d say it doesn’t really matter which package you chose at the private clinic, we chose different ones each time just to get something a bit different but you can go for the cheapest reassurance scan each time and they’re great.

We found the private scan Sonographer gave us more detail than NHS and we had more time to ask questions and watch baby on screen.

Check out reviews on google and Facebook etc as we came across a couple of scan places with bad reviews and avoided them.

[KateEmily3 in reply to Arya10]

Thank you this is really helpful! I’ve also read that the private scans and testing is more accurate than NHS so just trying to figure out whether we invest in doing private first / only. X

[Arya10 in reply to KateEmily3]

If you do private I’d still go to the NHS scans, it’s so nice to have both, we kinda used the private ones to break up the wait in between NHS scans. also, not sure if it’s like this everywhere but my midwife said she can’t include the private scan Info formally in my notes so the NHS scan info is really important for my records and is used if I ever call up the pregnancy unit for help (I’ve done this a couple of times when baby hasn’t moved for a day or 2). It’s so nice to see baby at any type of scan, enjoy x

[stephaniealexandra]

I've been for 2 private scans this pregnancy, I had a reassurance scan at 7 weeks and they told me a lot of info including what ovary baby came from, I then went back to find out gender a week ago and they were brilliant, they checked for any abnormalities and filled a form out for my notes so my actual midwife could see it, I've my normal nhs scan on the 24th of this month too, I don't know where abouts you are but the scan place we used was called window to the womb they may be based all over, they are excellent, good luck and congratulations on your pregnancy 💗💙 x