Imaging and Imagining the Fetus: The Development of Obstetric Ultrasound

How engineers and clinicians developed the ultrasound diagnostic scanner and how its use in obstetrics became controversial.

To its proponents, the ultrasound scanner is a safe, reliable, and indispensable aid to diagnosis. Its detractors, on the other hand, argue that its development and use are driven by the technological enthusiasms of doctors and engineers (and the commercial interests of manufacturers) and not by concern to improve the clinical care of women. In some U.S. states, an ult...