Ultrasound adverts banned for ‘deceptive mother and father’ about how a lot it may reassure them

Adverts for ultrasound companies have been banned for misrepresenting the extent to which the scans may present reassurance concerning the wellbeing of an unborn child.

The advertisements for London Private Ultrasound (LPU) and the Meet Your Miracle non-public scan studio provided varied scans together with a “reassurance scan” costing £100 “to reduce your parental anxiety and to confirm a normal progress of your pregnancy”.

The web site additionally provided a “Reassurance, dating Scan + Wellbeing check” for £59.00.

But the Advertising Standards Agency dominated this was prone to mislead mother and father – who have been “more likely to be anxious or vulnerable” – given the extent to which a scan from seven weeks may assess the well being and wellbeing of an embryo.

Both rulings are a part of a wider investigation by the ASA into non-public being pregnant ultrasound scans.

Ultrasound London Ltd, buying and selling as LPU, mentioned its advert was by no means supposed to recommend the reassurance scan offered further medical info to the affected person however quite to deal with any considerations the affected person might have.

Meet Your Miracle mentioned most sufferers attended the scan “with a singular concern of whether the baby was alive”.

It mentioned a easy measure of wellbeing could be whether or not the child is alive, which is feasible to find out by observing a heartbeat, which is seen at seven weeks.

LPU mentioned it instantly eliminated the itemizing for the scan from its web site.

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The ruling

The ASA mentioned LPU’s advert was not sufficiently clear that there have been variations or limitations within the extent of attainable assessments over the course of being pregnant, significantly at an early stage from eight weeks.

It dominated: “Given the emphasis on providing ‘reassurance’ and using the scan to ‘confirm the health of the foetus, and in the absence of further information clarifying what the scan assessed and was able to perceive, particularly from the very early stage of eight weeks into a pregnancy, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”

The ASA dominated Meet Your Miracle’s advert had additionally “not made sufficiently clear the extent to which it could provide ‘reassurance’ or determine the ‘wellbeing’ of an embryo, particularly from the early stage of pregnancy from seven weeks”.

The watchdog banned each advertisements from showing once more.