Services Offered at Yana Mother & Child Hospital
Yana IVF & Fertility Solution (P) Limited is an institution specialising in performing all pregnancy screening necessary for monitoring the condition of a developing foetus.
Yana is committed to providing the best possible care and outcome for each mother, baby and family. We provide comprehensive care to meet the needs of pregnant women and fetuses in a new model we call family-centered care.
Perinatology, also known as maternal-fetal medicine, is concerned with the specialized care of the mother and fetus in complicated, high-risk pregnancies. The Perinatology Division at Yana is an integral component of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and is committed to provide comprehensive, state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment for conditions affecting the expectant mother and fetus. The Perinatology division provides diagnostic and consultative services focused on high-risk obstetrics located in Thiruvananthapuram, the centre is managed by a well-qualified medical professional Dr. Akhila G Menon.
Dr. Akhila has done her fellowship from AIMS and is an expert in fetal medicine and imaging.
The centre offers an entire range of services including fetal scans, intrauterine procedures, genetic services, counselling for complicated pregnancies, including emotional counselling, gynaecological scans and procedures. Advanced technology with the latest high end machines combined with skilled professionals make this unique centre one of the most sought after fetal medicine centres in Kerala.
As one of only a few centers in South Kerala to provide the full spectrum of fetal therapies, Yana attracts parents from around the country seeking the ultimate in care for their unborn child.
Yana provides a full range of ultrasound services, including antepartum scans in the first, second and third trimesters, Down syndrome screening, Fetal ECHO, 3D/4D ultrasound, and ultrasound-guided procedures. The Centre is also skilled in the management and counselling of pregnancies complicated by fetal abnormalities, including growth disorders, inherited diseases, and structural malformations. Specialised scans for multi-fetal pregnancies are also routinely done.
Scheduled prenatal diagnostic consultation and targeted ultrasound examinations are available at the centre six days a week. Invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures such as amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, umbilical cord blood sampling, intra uterine transfusion and multifetal pregnancy reduction are performed.
Pregnancy is truly a blissful, natural process. Nevertheless, there may be complications arising during pregnancy that may put the baby’s health at risk. Therefore, every expectant mother would do well to attend this clinic in order to ensure the well being of her baby and herself.
Fetal Diagnosis
The advanced imaging and diagnostic facilities available at Yana Fetal Medicine Centre help us to detect a number of potentially fatal birth defects which would have otherwise gone undetected till the birth of the baby.
High-risk pregnancies involve rare medical conditions which are not seen in routine pregnancies. Detection of these conditions requires special knowledge, expertise, testing methods and equipment. An early and accurate diagnosis is vital to chart the plan of treatment for high-risk pregnancies so as to improve the results of the treatments.
Yana Fetal Medicine uses a variety of high-tech tools to assess and diagnose fetal conditions. Some of the commonly used diagnostic tools include:
Ultrasound scan to assess structural abnormalities
Early anomaly scan (12- 16 weeks)
Recent Studies and our experience have shown that in the first trimester nearly 56% of anomalies can be detected by early anomaly scans
Advantages of early scanning
- Early detection and exclusion of many anomalies
- Early reassurance to the expecting mother
- Early detection of genetic syndrome
- Safer terminations of pregnancies if appropriate
Detailed Targeted /Level II anomaly scan
This is a detailed scan done at 18-23 weeks during which each part of the fetal anatomy is examined to see if the baby is developing normally. Special attention is paid to the brain, face, spine, heart, stomach, bowel, kidneys and limbs.
Normally the examinations will take between 30 and 40 minutes but in some cases the patient may have to wait longer to allow the baby to move into a more favourable position.
The doctor will point out the baby’s heartbeat and parts of its body before looking at it in detail. It may be difficult for the parents to identify the organs at that stage. The doctor will be able to do so by looking at various angles and sections. However, at the end of the scan the baby will be shown to the parents and their family. The baby’s bones will appear white on the scan and its soft tissues look grey and speckled. The amniotic fluid surrounding the baby will look black. The quality of the scan image depends on many factors, including the position of the baby and the size of the mother.
Sometimes babies with chromosomal abnormalities have signs called ultrasound markers. These include in order of importance thick skin behind the neck (nuchal fold), absent nasal bone, mild fluid within the ventricles of the brain, aberrant subclavian artery in the neck, occasionally short arms or legs, white spots in the baby’s heart or abdomen, or choroid plexus cysts in the brain.
If the doctor suspects that your baby has a heart problem, fetal echo will be done. Fetal Echo is a detailed evaluation of the baby’s heart. Similarly, if any brain abnormality is suspected -Neurosonogram; detailed brain examination is carried out in the same sitting.
If any scan reveals a serious problem, the parents will be given adequate support and counselling to guide them through all the available options. Although such serious problems are rare, in some cases families may be faced with the most difficult decision of all which is whether to end the pregnancy or not.
Other problems may mean a baby needs surgery or treatment after birth, or even surgery while it is still in the uterus. There is a well-equipped and well experienced team available to support you through any difficult times, including obstetricians and neonatologist. Proper guidance will be provided in cases where there is a need of paediatric surgeon, neurosurgeon or plastic surgeon etc.
Multiple pregnancy scan
An expectant mother with twin pregnancy would need more frequent hospital visits and more frequent checkups than their singlet counterparts. Most twin pregnancies will have no complications and will have normal deliveries; however, it is important to be aware of the following complications: especially if its monochorionic twins
In dichorionic pregnancies there is a high chance of preterm delivery, growth restriction and low birth weight (<2.5 kg) in twin pregnancy. In addition to above risks, there is a small increased risk of birth defects in monochorionic twins. They are also at risk of complications arising from unequal sharing of the placenta which include differential growth patterns, twin twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a cardiac twinning and even death of a single baby leading to neurological complications in the surviving twin.
Further growth scans or fetal well being scans are done at four weekly intervals, i.e., approximately at 24, 28, 32 and 36 weeks respectively after targeted anomaly scan. Similarly, in Monochorionic pregnancies scans are at 2 weekly intervals, i.e., at 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 32, 34 and 36 weeks.
Ultrasound scan to assess fetal health
Fetal Viability scan
This is an ultrasound examination that is usually carried out vaginally. It is done to determine the number of fetuses present and to check whether the pregnancy is progressing normally inside the uterus with normal cardiac activity. It also screens for any collections inside the uterus.
Fetal well being scan -Growth scan with Dopplers & BPP
An ultrasound scan to assess fetal well being is offered to all women at about 28-30 weeks of pregnancy with an extra attention for those women who have had previous complications of pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia, growth retardation, diabetics, stillbirth and for those women who develop an abnormality during the course of their current pregnancy.
Fetal echocardiography
This involves Imaging the fetal heart with ultrasound technology to understand the fetal cardiac structure, function and rhythm.
Fetal Neurosonography
If any suspicion of a brain or spinal abnormality is raised during the obstetric ultrasound screening examination, the mother is advised to undergo targeted fetal neurosonography as a diagnostic examination. Targeted fetal neurosonography is a dedicated, multiplanar, diagnostic examination for fetuses at high risk or with suspicion of CNS or spinal malformations. In addition to the planes used in the screening examination, it requires coronal and sagittal views.
Advanced imaging
3D/4D Ultrasound
Most ultrasounds are routinely performed using conventional 2-dimensional (2D) scanning. The image usually appears grey on the ultrasound screen. With 3D ultrasound, a series of thin 2D slices is digitally reconstructed to give more life-like images. With 4D ultrasound, the added dimension is time, so that the 3D images appear to be moving in real time. The 3D/4D image is usually seen in golden colour on the ultrasound screen, as this colour is easy for patients to look at and highlights features on the baby.
For a good 3D/4D imaging the requirements are a co-operative baby and adequate amniotic fluid in front of the structure being imaged. Some babies press against the wall of the uterus or placenta, or they may have their arms or hands lying in front of the face. This will make obtaining 3D/4D images difficult or impossible.
