Seeing tiny hearts - Odessa American

While reviewing a sonogram on the ultrasound machine Wednesday afternoon, OB/GYN James Maher’s monitor didn’t show a recognizable fetus at 32 weeks in gestation, but rather, what an untrained eye can only describe as a couple of holes in scaly, gray mass. Then, a few shades of red and blue in and around the holes.

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Maher and ultrasound sonographer Christin Havercroft have offered fetal echocardiography services from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Odessa and at another office in Midland since March of 2012. With Havercroft being the first and currently only sonographerin the Permian Basin with a fetal echocardiography certification — and one of 26 in all of Texas, with most of them practicing in either Houston or the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to Maher — some expecting mothers who would have had to leave town to check up on the hearts of their kids-to-be can get that done near home.

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