Moms get identical 3-D ultrasound fetal images at Canadian clinic
by Thomas Dworetzky, Contributing Reporter | May 23, 2016
Business Affairs
Risk Management
Ultrasound
Owners say problem likely
caused by computer virus
caused by computer virus
Experts have urged expectant parents to be cautious about getting "keepsake ultrasounds" of baby.
Now more than a dozen Toronto women have learned the risks of such souvenirs of pregnancy the hard way — they were given identical 3-D images of their fetuses by a Pickering, Ont., prenatal imaging clinic, which claimed a computer glitch resulted in the mistake.
"I've been looking at that every day to get me by, and he's just not even mine," Kaley Austin told CBC. "I've been looking at a lie."
The single mom was in the midst of a tough pregnancy and worked hard to save the money for the scan.
"I just wanted to see his face," Austin said. She was horrified when she realized the image she'd been cherishing as her own was identical to a stock photo on the clinic's website.
The whole issue of these keepsakes is not without controversy. "As tempting as it might be to seek this sort of memento, remember that ultrasound isn't quite like snapping a photo. It's a medical procedure and isn't recommended solely for fun. If you decide to proceed with commercial ultrasound, do your homework. Check on training and credentials for the staff members," The Mayo Clinic had cautioned on its website.
It was Facebook that led the women to the discovery when Jenn Cusimano of Oshawa, Ont. posted her image in early May from BabyView Prenatal Imaging. Then in April a second mom posted her image — only it was identical.
"I was immediately enraged," Cusimano told CTVNews. "I thought 'Maybe it was a mistake', but there was something telling me it wasn't."
When Caitlin Macconnell of Ajax, Ont., spotted the pictures, she realized that her baby image, too, was the same. She told the news site that she was "completely heartbroken.”
BabyView Prenatal Imaging is owned by Moshina Adeelmir, a physician from Pakistan who is a licensed Ontario sonographer, her husband Adeel Mir told the site.
He handles IT for the company. "We have specific folders for every client. So we keep those images in those folders to get the print-out," Mir told the news organization. "Due to some virus, those images were not going into those specific folders, which were created for those clients."
He has yet to pinpoint the problem, however.
"To be honest we still don't know what happened," he explained, adding that it can be quite difficult to catch this sort of problem, as at 22 weeks, "the features of a baby are 99.9 percent similar."
Now more than a dozen Toronto women have learned the risks of such souvenirs of pregnancy the hard way — they were given identical 3-D images of their fetuses by a Pickering, Ont., prenatal imaging clinic, which claimed a computer glitch resulted in the mistake.
"I've been looking at that every day to get me by, and he's just not even mine," Kaley Austin told CBC. "I've been looking at a lie."
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"I just wanted to see his face," Austin said. She was horrified when she realized the image she'd been cherishing as her own was identical to a stock photo on the clinic's website.
The whole issue of these keepsakes is not without controversy. "As tempting as it might be to seek this sort of memento, remember that ultrasound isn't quite like snapping a photo. It's a medical procedure and isn't recommended solely for fun. If you decide to proceed with commercial ultrasound, do your homework. Check on training and credentials for the staff members," The Mayo Clinic had cautioned on its website.
It was Facebook that led the women to the discovery when Jenn Cusimano of Oshawa, Ont. posted her image in early May from BabyView Prenatal Imaging. Then in April a second mom posted her image — only it was identical.
"I was immediately enraged," Cusimano told CTVNews. "I thought 'Maybe it was a mistake', but there was something telling me it wasn't."
When Caitlin Macconnell of Ajax, Ont., spotted the pictures, she realized that her baby image, too, was the same. She told the news site that she was "completely heartbroken.”
BabyView Prenatal Imaging is owned by Moshina Adeelmir, a physician from Pakistan who is a licensed Ontario sonographer, her husband Adeel Mir told the site.
He handles IT for the company. "We have specific folders for every client. So we keep those images in those folders to get the print-out," Mir told the news organization. "Due to some virus, those images were not going into those specific folders, which were created for those clients."
He has yet to pinpoint the problem, however.
"To be honest we still don't know what happened," he explained, adding that it can be quite difficult to catch this sort of problem, as at 22 weeks, "the features of a baby are 99.9 percent similar."
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