r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/TechnicalCharge5433 • 1d ago

Question - Expert consensus required Exposed to radiation while pregnant. It’s all I’ve been thinking about and I’m scared

I am 7 weeks pregnant and I haven’t told anyone at work. I work at mental health hospital as a Tech and yesterday a patient needed X-rays done. The nurse told me to go in there with him and the xray tech. Both me and the tech had on no shields or anything and I was standing behind her, it was in a small room and I was only about 4 feet away from her. She took 3 X-rays of his chest. After that, another nurse pulled me out and asked why I was in there and said I was being exposed to radiation and no young woman should be in there without protection. I didn’t know that. I thought it only affects you if you’re the one being scanned. So I immediately did some research and I started to cry. It’s been in my mind ever since. Is this really bad?

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u/neurobeegirl 1d ago

While person who pulled you aside is correct that you should not be in the room without protection if you don’t need to, that’s largely because you don’t want repeated or chronic exposures. This one time is very unlikely to have any effect, especially as you were not the actual target of the x ray.

For example, dental x rays are considered safe even for pregnancy: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/x-ray-during-pregnancy/faq-20058264. Only x rays that focus on the abdominal area of the pregnant person are considered to be less advised.

Another way to look at it: even if you had received full direct radiation dose of this x ray, it would be the equivalent of flying cross country 5 times, as a pilot, flight attendant, or frequent traveler might do during pregnancy. The exposure you received is very likely to be much less than that. 

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u/MangoExciting9169 1d ago

Hi! Just to ease your mind the maximum dose for pregnant people in a nuclear power plant is 1mSv. One chest X-ray if taken directly is 0.1 mSv. So even if you took the full dose of the 3 X-rays you would still be at only 30% of the allowed dose wich is already super conservative. The intensity of radiation decreases exponentially with distance, so you definately did not get the full dose for this reason alone. Second the modern X-ray maschines are very well shielded to only release radiation directly to the patient, so anybidy not under the maschine where the imaging is done gets almost no radiation. Source: physicist

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u/MissMacky1015 1d ago

Hi OP I worked directly in nuclear medicine while pregnant and wore a monitoring device the entire pregnancy. The baby is perfectly healthy and my exposure readings were always on the low end…

You should do a quick google of all the things that give off radiation, it may surprise you!

I know you’re worried but I promise you’re okay 🫶

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u/aaphylla 1d ago

I had dental X-rays done during pregnancy and got SO stressed out afterwards after realising there was a risk. The dentist had to reassure me that it would be ok and the risk was minimal. He was correct, but I freaked out for a while.

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u/violentsunflower 20h ago

I hate those confirmation bias stories, usually, but I’m adding one here… my grandmother was x-rayed while seven months pregnant with twins (they suspected she was pregnant with twins but x-rayed to confirm 🙃) in 1966. Not like she was accidentally exposed, but they purposely x-rayed her. Twins have each been married for 30-plus years, one has a masters and the other a doctorate

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u/stardust8718 14h ago

I came to say my uncle's mom also had an X-ray of her abdomen because they suspected twins also. Both of the twins are in their 60s and healthy and their mom is 96 now!

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u/DogsDucks 1d ago

I did the same thing, and they put two of the lead cloaks around me to ease my fear.

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u/RadOncolysis 1d ago

I'm a CT tech in radiology and just wanted to comment to help ease OP's concerns, although I don't have a source to cite. We're taught in school that time, distance, and shielding are necessary to protect you from radiation. The amount of time you were exposed was a fraction of a section, at an incredibly tiny dose. That time and dosage of radiation exposure in radiology only increases the risk by a fraction of a percentage, think 0.0000's. The distance from the tube here is also a major positive. When you double your distance from the x-ray tube, you reduce your exposure by 1/2. I'm sure there's more to this, but this is just the basic concept we were taught.

X-ray machines are much more advanced today than they were years ago. There's nearly no leakage from the tubes so only the patient is receiving the radiation. Your distance from the tube and not being within the direct x-ray beam means you likely received at most a tiny fraction of the dose and quite likely nothing at all.

Do we recommend pregnant women be x-rayed for absolutely no reason? Absolutely not, because there's no benefit to the risk, even if it's the tiniest risk possible. However, pregnant women are receiving x-rays and CT scans safely because the benefit greatly outweighs the risk.

If this happened to me, I would feel completely fine by it and not concerned at all.

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u/kaecleo 23h ago

I am also an CT & cardiology tech and can second all of this. I spent my whole pregnancy working with live X-rays and my dosimeters barely registered anything.

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u/m00nriveter 1d ago

Just to add anecdotal reassurance, I agreed to receive chest x-rays in my 2nd trimester because they were worried about blood clots in my lungs and the risk of the potential clot was considered significantly greater than the risk of the x-ray exposure. My daughter (now 1) is absolutely fine—spot-on average birthweight, perfect physical development, and meeting all her milestones with great gusto.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/dmmeurpotatoes 1d ago

They've found that shielding reflects radiation around inside of it, so actually can increase your exposure compared to not shielding.

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u/AdaTennyson 1d ago

For the patient.

For the people in the room, shields are still absolutely still used and protect you. https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/specialties/radiology/xray-faq#:\~:text=More%20than%2050%20years%20of,%2C%20during%20X%2Dray%20exams.

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u/Nirlep 1d ago

Obviously not generally recommended, but xray images are not so bad dosage wise. As long as you were not directly in line with the machine, your dosage should have still been much lower than the patient's.

"A single chest x-ray exposes the patient to about 0.1 mSv. This is about the same amount of radiation people are exposed to naturally over the course of about 10 days."

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/imaging-tests/understanding-radiation-risk-from-imaging-tests.html

Please speak to your employer to ensure you can take proper precautions. In health care there's definitely added risk compared to other job types.

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u/SylviaPellicore 1d ago

Deep breaths. You’re okay.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “With few exceptions, radiation exposure through radiography, computed tomography scan, or nuclear medicine imaging techniques is at a dose much lower than the exposure associated with fetal harm.” And that’s discussing a pregnant patient getting the X-rays herself.

https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2017/10/guidelines-for-diagnostic-imaging-during-pregnancy-and-lactation

It’s true you are exposed to background radiation if you are near the patient. However, it’s a lower dose than if you directly received the x-ray. The radiation level drops off very rapidly with disease. At six feet away, it’s nearly indistinguishable from background. At four feet, your dose was fairly minimal.

You didn’t know about radiation protection rules because you didn’t get proper training. Now you know, and you’ll make a different choice next time. A one-time exposure is extremely unlikely to cause issues.

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u/Stellaknight 1d ago

The risks to your baby are infinitesimally small. Not only is a chest xray an incredibly small amount of radiation, X-rays are very directed—so even 4 feet makes a big difference in dosage. It’s not as uncommon as you might think for pregnant women to get X-rays in early pregnancy. Even if you got some exposure, it’d be incredibly small—much much smaller than what you’d get from an actual xray, and the risks from even a full xray are very small. Give yourself a hug mama—and relax. Now you know and can wear an apron next time, but forgive yourself for this one—it’s going to be fine

Mayo Clinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/x-ray-during-pregnancy/faq-20058264

Other Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/pregnant/comments/183to9d/anyone_gotten_an_x_ray_in_early_pregnancy/

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u/233C 1d ago

Don't do that 10 times a day and you'll be fine.

Basilan beach for scale