If your baby had a short femur in scans, what was the outcome?

[MrsArh]

So many threads online with people with the same concerns but no one ever comes back to update. Has anyone had an official short femur (below 5th centile) diagnosis and can give an update on the outcome?

Hi there, I am sitting here holding my nearly one day old whose femurs were supposedly on the 3rd per centile for 3 successive scans from week 28. The first consultant scared the life out of us by providing non-contextualised, non risk-based advice that my baby ‘could’ have Down syndrome and broke the ‘news’ as though it was a serious risk. She also offered an amniocentesis at this 28 week- despite the fact that we had had a negative harmony test and baby had no other ‘soft’ markers beyond the femur, which I have learned is one of the least reliable things to measure in a process which is nowhere near an exact science. I went to the Fetal Medicine Centre at Harley street who were way more reassuring (and measured the femurs at 12th per centile and told me it was an in exact science anyway). I changed consultants at C & w and got the sensible advice that the risk was ‘very small’. At a 36 week scan my baby had grown and was in 8th-12th for femurs according to NHS now too. Bottom line is I am not sure this should even have been mentioned as an issue given the broader context and I was traumatized completely unnecessarily. It even worried me the day before my son was born. My love to anyone else who went through a Similar experience. I promised that I would come back with an update once I knew baby was okay.

I thought I'd add my experience here. I was really unwell during my pregnancy, with multiple separate bouts of pancreatitis. My baby went down and down the centiles and had a short femur on every measurement. I had very frequent monitoring as an outpatient (at West Middx, so the same group as C&W), followed by hospitalisation from 33-37 weeks so I could be treated, during which time she was monitored every few hours. She was tiny when she was born - only 4lb 9oz when induced at term - and looked very premature to say she was 37 weeks. She was pinched and a bit translucent and it took her three months to make it to a weight that could be recorded on the non-preemie chart in her red book.

Fast-forward by 18 months old and she is absolutely thriving. She's got loads of healthy baby chub, is extremely active (and lives for danger; she will climb anything), she's walking well, beginning to talk and is already wearing 2-3 year clothes. No sign of any lasting damage. Ours is a really happy ending, so I thought it worth sharing.

I had growth scans for my baby who is now 5 months.

Everyone was different. In one, her legs had shrunk dramatically from the previous scan Which is obviously not possible. The next scan they were back to normal.

She was the opposite though. 3rd centile for everything apart from femurs which were 75th.

She's got long legs, I'll give her that. I have to roll up the sleeves of sleep suits but her toes are almost popping out.

She's my 3rd and I went through hell with growth scans. I'm very very far and they couldn't understand why she was so small, even though both my other babies were tiny (I was thin with those and you could see that I actually have a very small frame when it's not padded out to a size 22).

(And I don't mean they had "shrunk" with centile measurements - I'm mean in centimetres. So it's never exact).

My baby had a femur measuring on the 3rd per centile from 28 weeks until quite late in pregnancy. He is perfect and his legs are long!!

A further update on my baby (described above) who was born weighing 4lb9oz at full term, having had shortened femur measurements and low volatility growth from 20 weeks onwards, due to an illness I had. It took her 5 months just to get to a weight/length that could be recorded on the charts in the red book and we were desperately worried about her.

This week she hit the 91st centile for height, at 27 months (my husband's 6'3" and I'm 5'9"). She climbs ladders like she was born to be a pirate and has the dirtiest laugh I've ever heard. I wish I'd had a tiny glimpse of how well she'd do, back when i was worried sick. Wishing similar outcomes for any babies whose mums are worried enough to search for and read this post.

5 months should say 3 months. Typo! But the rest is true.

Unless I'm missing something (I'm not a medic), 5% of babies (1 in 20) will be below the 5 percentile. Unless there is a huge mismatch with other measurements then the checks are likely to be precautionary.

Some lovely stories here :)

I think all these percentile ratios are just so off. Everyone is different, I'm short, my kids are short ...my DIL was talking about my grandson s percentiles the other day...I told her not to worry..hes normal.

My grandson's scans showed a big head, a big tummy and very short femurs.
He's 8 months old now... built like a rugby prop forward with gorgeous short chunky legs, an average tummy and quite a big head! But he's been crawling since he was 6 months and cruising the furniture now, so his shorty legs aren't holding him back! Both parents are short so we don't think he'll be a 6 footer!