Medical ultrasound facts for kids
Diagnostic ultrasonography is a cool way doctors can look inside your body without needing to cut you open! It uses ultrasound, which are sound waves too high-pitched for humans to hear. These sound waves bounce off your internal body parts, like your muscles, tendons, and other organs. A computer then uses these bouncing sounds to create a picture of what's inside. This helps doctors see if everything is healthy or if there's any damage.
One common use is called obstetric sonography. This is when doctors use ultrasound to check on a baby growing inside a pregnant woman. It helps them see how the baby is developing.
Ultrasound is also super helpful in emergency medicine. If someone has been in an accident or is very sick (like in shock or after a trauma), doctors can quickly use a test called Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (FAST exam). This test can find if there's any unexpected fluid, like blood, inside the body. Finding this quickly helps doctors decide if a person needs urgent surgery to save their life.
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How Ultrasound Works
Ultrasound machines have a special tool called a transducer, or "probe." This probe sends out sound waves that travel through your body. When these sound waves hit something, like an organ or a bone, they bounce back to the probe. The machine then listens to these echoes.
Creating Images
Think of it like how bats use sound to "see" in the dark. The machine measures how long it takes for the sound waves to bounce back and how strong the echoes are. Different parts of your body, like soft tissues or bones, will reflect sound waves differently. The computer uses all this information to create a real-time image on a screen. It's like watching a live video of what's happening inside you!
What Ultrasound Can Show
Doctors use ultrasound for many different things. It's a safe and painless way to check on many parts of your body.
Checking Organs
Ultrasound can show doctors many important organs. For example, they can look at your heart to see how it's pumping blood. They can also check your liver, kidneys, and gallbladder to make sure they are working correctly.
Looking at Muscles and Joints
If you hurt yourself playing sports, an ultrasound can help. It can show doctors your tendons and ligaments, which are important parts of your joints. This helps them see if you have a sprain or a tear.
During Pregnancy
For pregnant women, ultrasound is a wonderful tool. It allows doctors to:
- See the baby's heartbeat.
- Check the baby's size and growth.
- Look at the baby's organs to make sure they are developing well.
- Determine if it's a boy or a girl!
Safety of Ultrasound
Ultrasound is considered very safe. Unlike X-rays, it does not use radiation. It uses sound waves, which are harmless to the body. This is why it's often used for pregnant women and babies. It's a quick, easy, and painless test that helps doctors learn a lot about what's going on inside your body.
Images for kids
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An ultrasound result on fetal biometry printed on a piece of paper.
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Ultrasound of human heart showing the four chambers and mitral and tricuspid valves.
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Orthogonal planes of a 3 dimensional sonographic volume with transverse and coronal measurements for estimating fetal cranial volume.
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Neck ultrasound.
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Urinary bladder (black butterfly-like shape) and hyperplastic prostate (BPH) visualized by medical sonographic technique
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Medical ultrasound scanner
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Linear array transducer
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Duplex scan of the common carotid artery
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Parametric imaging of vascular signatures (diagram)
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Ultrasound-guided hip joint injection.
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Panoramic ultrasonography of a proximal biceps tendon rupture. Top image shows the contralateral normal side, and lower image shows a retracted muscle, with a hematoma filling out the proximal space.
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Double aorta artifact in sonography due to difference in velocity of sound waves in muscle and fat.
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A normal appendix without and with compression. Absence of compressibility indicates appendicitis.
See also
In Spanish: Ecografía para niños
