The echogram is a study technique that uses the ultrasounds.
The sound waves, emitted by a special source, are gathered and elaborated by a called apparatus echograph.
Echograph very perfected, that allow the visualization of the fetus and its organs, with very small margins of error exist at the present time.
The echogram is not used only for the prenatal diagnosis, but also to monitorizar the gestation. In effect, the echogram constitutes the best method to demonstrate the presence to consider its age, to make specific the position, the location of the placenta and the amount of amniotic liquid, to identify the multiple pregnancies and, finally, to recognize the congenital malformations.
The main virtue of the echograph technique is that it allows to make exact, precocious diagnoses and without causing annoyance some to the pregnant woman and the fetus.
Actually the specialist obtains through echograph an image that provides such amount to him of details that allows to detect alterations him in charge of structures of small dimensions, like by exemplum of the cardiac cavities. Of this form nowadays most of the congenital cardiopathies are already diagnosable during the intrauterine life.
The amniocentesis is always made, at the present time, with the help of the echogram, that allows to locate the placenta and to the fetus by means of a needle introduced until the amniotic coat.
Of this form a litlle amount of amniotic liquid can be extracted, that is used for the study of amino acids, hormones and of the alphaphetusprotein.
This last one is a protein that is synthesized in the liver from the beginning of the fetal life. He is present in the serum of the blood of the adult in very small and stable amounts.
During the gestation, the alphaphetusprotein levels of the maternal serum increase, with a maximum corresponding to 32a week.
The value of alphaphetusprotein in the maternal serum is abnormally high in case of anomalies of the spinal marrow (pricks bifid) and of other anomalies, like for example onfalocele, or by fetus of little weight.
Therefore, the monitoring of the Seric value of alphaphetusprotein in the pregnant woman allows to suspect the existence of a fetal malformation.
