Maternal-foetal medicine expert & Professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at UCD Prof Fionnuala McAuliffe who heads up the foetal cardiology programme at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles St, Dublin has called on more resources to be made available to help detect congenital heart problems in babies while still in the womb. “Around 18-20 weeks into the pregnancy is a good time to look at the heart because the baby moves around and you get a better view”, she said “A lot of these defects are missed on routine scans because heart defects are generally quite difficult to pick up”. “Most of the congenital heart defects are in the low-risk women so the better the routine scan can be done within the time slot, the more defects will be picked up”. The Irish Times writes “after three years she (Dr McAuliffe) is satisfied that the foetal cardiology programme has benefited many of the babies screened”. Image to the left shows Prof McAuliffe working on the GE Medical Voluson Expert Ultrasound machine which she uses for detecting these heart problems. Details about this ultrasound machine is available in the product catalog section of the website – see Ultrasound Imaging.