Netherlands to discontinue 13-week pregnancy ultrasound after 2027

The Dutch government has decided to discontinue the 13-week ultrasound screening for pregnant women after 2027. This decision follows a recommendation from the Health Council.

While the screening was introduced in late 2021 as an optional medical check, officials determined that the benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks. Data indicated that the tests were often unreliable at that stage of fetal development; in its first year, the screening caused significant unnecessary panic for hundreds of women due to false positives, while simultaneously failing to detect over a thousand actual abnormalities because the fetus was too small for accurate imaging.

As a result, the 13-week ultrasound will no longer be a standard or structural part of pregnancy care in the Netherlands.