Let Afi and ZoZo tell you about Echocardiograms

That was a lot. Let's break it down...

Have you ever wondered how doctors saw pictures of you while your mom was pregnant? Or how bats, dolphins, or whales see in the dark? Well these answers are similar to how your doctor sees inside your heart using echocardiograms. Bats, dolphins, and whales all send out sound waves, that hit objects in the surrounding environment and reflect back to the animals. When the waves come back, the animals are able to make pictures in their heads of what is in front of them. When you were in your mother’s stomach, doctors used a probe to send sound waves into your mother’s belly which made a picture of you! Echocardiograms do similar things. Echo means sound, cardio means relating to heart, and gram means picture. This means that the probe Afi talked about earlier sends and receives sound waves from your heart, and then is able to make a picture that the doctor’s read on a screen!

What to expect during the procedure:

  1. Stickers attached to wires will be placed on your chest along with very gooey gel. This is so they can get pictures of your heart.

  2. The room might be dark. This is to make sure the best pictures of your heart are taken!

Check out what our friends at the American Heart Association have to say about Echocardiograms!