instruction: hi doctor I just found out that I am pregnant ith week at first I was excited then I realized that I went into a very hot sauna 90 degrees celsius for one and a half hours when I was around weeks pregnant weeks from conception the whole point of the sauna is to detox and I definitely was overheating sweating and red faced I did however take two breaks where I jumped in cold water to cool down anyways I read that overheating when pregnant can cause horrible neural tube damage that can lead to birth defects especially in these crucial early weeks when it is forming my question is how worried should I be should I go to a specialist for this is it so bad that I should consider termination my first scan is at 12 weeks and that is the only time I will be able to ask anything and I will be worried it is too late
output: hello neural tube defects nod in the baby mostly occur in women deficient in folic acid or who are diabetic or if they have any family history or as an associated defect with other chromosomal anomalies yes the baby organs do develop in the early weeks of pregnancy and any extreme exposures can pose risk for maternal health and also for fetal development but I have never come across the risk of developing nod with exposure to sauna but anyway it would be better if you avoid it for the future as of now you need not worry too much about this exposure stay calm and stay positive the first trimester scanning at 12 weeks is good enough to pick any nods and I do not think that would be too late or you need to go for any termination of pregnancy just because of the exposure to sauna at this early pregnancy there is no means to find out if the baby has developed any abnormalities or not and also the second to scan detailed anatomical scan at 18 20 weeks can also pick most 90 95 of any structural anomalies also regarding your gestational age calculations if your cycles were always regular then you should calculate the weeks from the starting day of your last menstrual period it would have been really helpful if you had mentioned the same it would have helped me correlate if your assumption of weeks of pregnancy are correct or not I am assuming as you said you are in the fifth week now so you just skipped your periods a few days back tablet folic acid my daily once after food avoid sexual intercourse for the first three months of pregnancy