Ultrasound 3D/4D

Ultrasounds use sound waves to create an image of your baby in the womb:

A regular 2-D ultrasound creates a cross-sectional view of your baby.

In a 3-D ultrasound, many 2-D images are taken from various angles and pieced together to form a three-dimensional image. This looks more like what you’re used to seeing in a typical photograph. 4-D is similar to 3-D, but it shows movement, so you can see your baby kicking or opening and closing their eyes.
So why don’t we use 3-D all the time if we have the capability to do so? Simply, 2-D often is more efficient. We usually don’t need 3-D to assess how your baby is developing. While 3-D can give a nice picture of the outside of your baby, 2-D ultrasound is really the standard that has been developed by experts to look for abnormalities in development and growth of your baby.
However, 3-D and 4-D ultrasounds can be important tools to assess some abnormalities that are hard to look at in 2-D, such as cleft lip. They also are helpful when we need to explain an abnormality to parents. While doctors and sonographers may be able to easily recognize it in a 2-D image, parents are often able to better visualize the abnormality in a 3-D image.