i would go in quite tense, i would have the most sleepless night before just with pure worry, so when you then come out of that and you know everything's 0k, like... and i would say, i feel pretty relieved for maybe a good couple of days, up to a week, and then the cycle then starts again. do you feel like the private scans reduce or increase your anxiety? i get what you mean, is it reinforcing the anxiety? but i found the relief, being able to just sleep at night and not worry even just for one night was just worth it, just to know that everything was ok today. scans are carried out by sonographers. anyone can call themselves one. it's not a regulated profession like being a midwife. companies offer a variety of services including the chance to get souvenir images or video, to find out the gender or check for abnormalities.

my children could have been without a mother. carrie—anne felt anxious after recognising pregnancy symptoms having undergone a sterilising procedure. she was worried about her increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy where the foetus grows outside the womb and so booked a scan at a studio run by window to the womb in lisburn. it is contradicting itself. foetus absent and normal live pregnancy. even though the foetus couldn't be seen during the scan and despite her history, the studio recorded a normal pregnancy. a day later, she began bleeding and went to the nhs. so i explained to the hospital that i had been for a private ectopic scan and that everything was fine, it wasn't ectopic, so they did rescan me and they didn't pick up the ectopic either, so i was home, believing that i was miscarrying. the bleeding continued. two weeks later, she was sent to a&e.

my fallopian tubes had ruptured and my stomach had filled with blood. i was hours from death. so there was no miscarriage, it was an ectopic pregnancy. the company says it's unable to comment due to legal proceedings. revealing the ba by‘s gender has become a big part of many pregnancies. party gifts is an industry worth tens of millions of pounds. go! we've spoken to a woman who attended a scan with window to the womb in salford to check her baby's well—being and record its genderfor a party. we've learned the company identified a serious abnormality incompatible with life where part or all of the foetus's head is missing, called anencephaly. but rather than refer her immediately to hospital and provide a medical report, the woman was told the baby's head couldn't be fully seen and recommended to book an nhs anomaly scan. it was absolutely immoral. it was disgusting.

they let this poor girl leave and go to a gender reveal party, name the baby, open gifts and that baby couldn't live. they even gave the little girl a teddy bear with the heartbeat of her little sister. she only found out when she showed the scan images to a family friend who is an experienced stenographer. i saw the pictures in front of me and the abnormality was so obvious and so grotesque, i couldn't believe my eyes, in all honesty. i had to break the news that that baby couldn't live. i had to do that over the telephone and they were hysterical, absolutely hysterical. window to the womb have said all its staff are registered with the health and care professions council, but we found the sonographer who conducted the scan was not. at the time, the mother wrote to the company saying, "i feel betrayed, distraught and lost for words." the company apologised. it says the sonographer

left shortly afterwards and the incident led to best practice being reinforced across its branches. available from 15 weeks plus... some companies say they are not medical and don't diagnose problems. one of these, called meet your miracle, advertises reassurance scans which it says visualise well—being. we have been passed these messages from the company's whatsapp group which show sonographers and management sharing and discussing customer scans, sometimes during appointments. any ideas at all? i have asked her outside. one sonographer told the group she felt guilty after having to let a woman leave without telling her about a possible serious abnormality. i knew something was wrong straightaway, didn't know what to do. i feel terrible at saying nothing and i'm racked with guilt for not saying anything. despite being a non—medical company, we've been told women are accepted for scans who are bleeding and in pain rather than being recommended to

visit the nhs first. the company says it's scans are largely recreational and under its registration, it cannot discuss any concerns unless they are relevant to the baby's heartbeat. it says it advises women bleeding and in pain to attend the nhs, but its service detecting a heartbeat is invaluable in reducing anxiety. other companies do advertise medical scans which diagnose abnormalities. window to the womb is one of the biggest. these leaked internal documents show that three spina bifida cases were missed in a single week in may. the mistakes were clearly visible according to the compa ny‘s directors. they described the cases as a pattern of similar and serious errors which confirm that the sonographers are not thoroughly checking all elements of the babies' development. this whistle—blower has worked as a sonographer in a number of branches alongside herjob in the nhs. there's so many women. it's like a conveyor belt. there's been near misses already. she claims working conditions

mean problems will be missed. they want to be all—singing, all—dancing, medical checks, pictures, and it can't be done in a five to eight minute scan and it can't be done effectively when you've already done 30. you would never do a medical scan in the nhs with all those distractions going on. it's really important that a sonographer is able to concentrate and not have somebody try to sell the customer a teddy bear. pregnancy can be a really anxious time for many women. what's wrong if they need that extra reassurance? there's nothing wrong with extra reassurance, but what i'm finding is that they're wanting it earlier and earlier. you know, they offer scans from six weeks when it's a bit hit and miss if you can even see anything that you can relate to. so then it's back for another scan and then maybe another and then a gender scan. the company says it conducts more than 100,000 scans a year and human error can occur. it said is—minute appointments are the same length used by some nhs trusts and are not full anomaly scans. we wanted to see what people made of their service.

many positive reviews are left online. what an incredible, stunning place... but we found the owner of multiple branches using their own facebook accounts to praise studios. and this is the standard for ultrasound clinics to aspire to, five stars. thank you so much for your amazing review, mark. we've also discovered one of the company's directors posting reviews saying... really impressed how the clinic is keeping everyone safe during the coronavirus outbreak. the same image is used on his facebook profile. we asked window to the womb why managers hadn't disclosed their connection to the company. it said it recognised that a handful of these reviews do not link with appointments and planned to remove them immediately. we showed our evidence to an expert in ultrasound. telling somebody to leave without telling them there's something wrong is... it's appalling, really.

jacqueline torrington has over 20 years' experience scanning. my fallopian tubes had ruptured and my stomach had filled with blood. i was hours from death. a lady with an ectopic, that is horrifying. i mean, that is so dangerous. nothing about this report actually adds up. foetus absent and normal, live pregnancy. that's completely contradictory. it's a very striking catalogue of incredibly poor practice. it ranges from incredibly dangerous to anxiety inducing and all of it is... ..wrong. the care quality commission is responsible for regulating the services companies provide, but we found branches that have not been inspected since opening four years ago and learned it doesn't review samples of scans as part of inspections.

in a statement, it says there is good quality care in the industry as a whole but it has a growing concern. the government says the majority of sonographers are qualified nurses or radiographers, experts in interpreting imagery say regulation of sonographers is needed. you're doing the most difficult scans at the trickiest time for the most anxious group of people on a workforce who do not necessarily know their level of skills, their level of expertise and what training they've actually had. many staff at these companies working as radiographers and midwives will be regulated, so why does any of this matter? it matters now because of the massive increase in these companies. if you said to most members of the public, do you realise that some of the people scanning you actually do not have an easy way of demonstrating that expertise? i think the mums would be surprised. problems in pregnancy are rare, but women who have experienced them say it's vital private scans

do not lead to false reassurance. it has put an effect on mine and my husband's relationship because it's something that... i don't know, could it happen again? will it happen again? and can i trust anybody's judgment that it's not going to happen? you know? it was just so close and it's one of them things that thank god i came out the other side, but how wrong could this go for somebody else? most of us got to see a little bit of brightness today. it is greatly quite cold out there through tonight. high—pressure setting to the south of the british isles. this week whether front providing some

cloud stop with also had some showers across northern areas, particularly across northern and western scotland. this will tend to fade during the night. we will certainly see more clout rolling into northern ireland and western scotland. here that will tend to lift the temperatures by morning. elsewhere, where we have the clean spouse, quite a chilly night. temperatures around freezing. it is a along its eastern areas that will see the best of the sun shine through tomorrow. cloud will thicken during the day. the old spot of rain. decker clout will bring more persistent rain to northern ireland and especially western parts of scotland, where it will also be part windy. there is temperatures highest in the west, mouth are pushing end but after that cert is going to be difficult staying in single digits. we then see this weather system

wriggling around. we will see outbreaks of rain. it is going to be quite a wet day in northern ireland. some of that rain continued to feed in across scotland at times. for much of england and wales, some dry weather, some spells of rain, some chance of drizzle for the west. highs of 13 celsius. as you move out of tuesday to wednesday, things do start to change. that frontal system that has been wriggling around will start to put east, weakening as it goes. some patchy rain. behind that frontal system, with start to get back some chilly air. wednesday, the re m na nts of back some chilly air. wednesday, the remnants of that whether front bringing clout in some patchy rain to the south and south east of the uk. elsewhere, some spells of sunshine. you can see temperatures backin sunshine. you can see temperatures back in single digits by the state. as we head towards the end of the week, it is looking rather chilly by day and cold by night, with some

frost and fog at times. but it will be largely dry.

this is bbc news. the headlines at seven... the government signals that families could be allowed to celebrate christmas together in what it calls a limited and cautious way. but how many can meet and for how long is still being decided, as the options are considered. we have to find a balance, i guess, between covid restrictions and the well—being and mental health of our nations. the head of the us coronavirus programme says he hopes the first americans will be vaccinated in december, as the country passes 12 million confirmed cases. at the end of the virtual 620 summit, leaders of the world's richest nations call for the vaccine to be made affordable so poorer countries don't get left behind. the nhs in england is set to get an extra £3 billion,