Answer to Question #4135 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

I am a pediatric cardiologist and I work at a catheterization laboratory. I want to become pregnant but I don´t want to stop working. What are the risks for the baby? Do I have to stop working during pregnancy?

With the assumption that you are wearing a lead apron when you're in the room during fluoroscopy procedures, there is no problem with becoming pregnant and continuing to work in the catheterization laboratory.  Lead aprons are tested annually for effectiveness and stop roughly 95-98% of the primary fluoroscopy beam (they are better for stopping scatter radiation). The lead apron is your best method to keep your whole-body exposure low.

The cardiologists at my organization continue to work during pregnancy. For general radiation monitoring, they each have a radiation badge that they wear outside the apron at the collar level during fluoroscopy procedures. When an individual becomes pregnant, we give them a second badge to wear under the apron at the abdominal level. Our cardiologists are the second highest exposure group at the organization (interventional radiologists are first)—meaning that the badge readings outside the apron are generally fairly high, sometimes approaching the annual regulatory limit for occupational exposure (5,000 millirem). Now you're probably thinking that is a bit scary. Well, the radiation badges our pregnant cardiologists wear under the apron have never, in my 20 years here, shown a measurable reading—it has always been zero so the fetus is getting no exposure from the mother continuing to work in a fluoroscopy area.

If you don't want to, you do not need to stop working during your pregnancy.

Kelly Classic
Certified Medical Health Physicist