How long after a chest X-ray can you get pregnant?

When patients have frequent coughs, they must carefully check whether their lungs are infected, because pneumonia is very serious for the patient's body. Generally, chest X-rays are required to check both lungs of patients, but chest examinations will have a lot of radiation, which will also cause certain damage to our bodies. Especially for pregnant women, such examinations should be avoided. So how long after a chest X-ray can you get pregnant?

The radiation dose of a single chest X-ray is within the healthy range for our human body and will not cause harm to women's ovarian function. Moreover, chest X-ray irradiates the chest, and the radiation dose directly radiating to the female pelvis and ovaries is very small. So theoretically speaking, a chest X-ray will not affect a woman's preparation for and pregnancy, and she can get pregnant in the second month. However, from the perspective of eugenics, some people are still worried about whether getting pregnant right after a chest X-ray will affect the development of the fetus. Based on the development cycle of the egg, it takes three months for a mature egg to develop. If we want to minimize the damage to the egg caused by chest X-ray, we recommend preparing for pregnancy three months after the chest X-ray.

How long does it take to get pregnant after a chest X-ray?

Considering the eugenics of the baby, doctors recommend that if a woman planning to have a baby has been exposed to X-rays such as chest X-rays, it is best to wait three months before getting pregnant to reduce the risk of fetal malformations.

There is no doubt that chest X-ray has an impact on the fetus, but the extent of the impact is related to the stage of embryonic development, radiation dose and irradiation site. In the early stage of fertilized egg implantation, due to rapid cell division, if the radiation dose is too high, it may cause embryo death. If the embryo survives, it will grow normally with few deformities. During the embryonic organogenesis period, various tissues are gradually differentiating into various organs, and the radiation effects at this time are various deformities. If the fetus is affected by radiation in the early stages of organ development, it may also cause intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, and small for gestational age. During the fetal period, since most organs have been basically formed, radiation damage rarely causes obvious deformities. However, the fetus's gonads, teeth, and central nervous system are still developing, which may cause functional disorders and mental retardation. Therefore, women who are preparing for pregnancy should carefully choose X-ray examinations, and pregnant women should try to avoid them.

Causes of fetal malformations

One is genetic factors, which are inherited from parents and include various genetic diseases. Some are directly passed down from parents to children, which is called dominant inheritance. Sometimes the defects of the father or mother do not appear in the next generation, but only appear after several generations. This is called recessive inheritance, or inheritance from one generation to the next. Marriage between close relatives can greatly increase the incidence of genetic diseases and deformed children.

The second reason is environmental factors, including diet, living conditions, hobbies, illness, contact with substances that can cause fetal malformations (referred to as teratogens), etc., all of which can affect the development of the fetus. Especially in the early stages of pregnancy, that is, the first three months, the fetus develops extremely vigorously. It is the initial stage of development of major organs and is particularly sensitive to environmental factors. Many adverse stimuli can cause fetal malformations. If a pregnant woman is infected with a virus such as rubella, herpes simplex, or influenza in the early stages of pregnancy, the incidence of fetal malformations is particularly high, so some people advocate that pregnant women who suffer from a viral infection in the early stages of pregnancy should have an artificial abortion as soon as possible.