Baby on Board: Managing Occupational Radiation Exposure During Pregnancy

Abstract

This article reviews the issue of occupational radiation exposure as a deterrent to recruitment of women into the field of interventional radiology and provides the reader with three strategies to optimize radiation protection during fluoroscopically guided procedures. These include personal protective shielding, use of ancillary shielding, and techniques that limit fluoroscopy x-ray tube output. When optimal radiation safety practices are implemented as the norm in the IR suite, very little extra needs to be done to ensure that fetal dose of a pregnant interventionalist is negligible.

Keywords: occupational radiation exposure; pregnant worker.