Amnio offered at 29 weeks

[junebug121]

Hi all, just looking to see if anyone has been through similar.

We had a growth scan last week and it showed that our baby is small (below the 5th percentile). So they sent us for a fetal medicine scan yesterday.

They can't find anything wrong with him and overall blood flow looks good through the chord. So they don't know why he is small and they've offered me an amnio which I really don't want.

I don't really understand why it's even being offered. We did have a high Downs risk from the combined 1in13 but then we had the harmony which was low risk. Yet they seemed quite insistent that it could be chromosomal. I know the Harmony doesn't test for everything but the 20 week scan was fine and there doesn't seem to be anything else or at least they're not saying it.

I now am just waiting until the next growth scan in a weeks time and praying he grows.

Has anyone else been in this situation? As I sit here, with him kicking me, I'm so worried about my little boy

Check the chances of spontaneous delivery at 29 weeks as well as other risks - personally, unless it would indicate some sort of necessary treatment in utero I probably wouldn't bother and see what's what when he's born - it may just be he's a small baby

How difficult OP. How tough for you! I can totally understand why you wouldn't want an amnio. I've had an amnio at 21 weeks because of soft markers on the scan, several of them, so it was not a surprise (Well, within reason) when the amnio came back with a result of a trisomy.

Are there any soft markers or is it just growth? Because growth is a funny one. It's very easy to get growth wrong. I was told DC1 would be a tiny baby, lucky if he'd be 5 pounds at term. I was told this at 29 weeks, like you. He weighed 8 1/2 pounds at birth and has always been a huge chap- total rugby player.

It's a grey area growth. And the last couple of weeks of pregnancy is when babies do an incredible amount of growing.
If it were me (and becuase of my history of having two chromosomally abnormal pregnancies I have had CVSs in my subsequent pregnancies), I would be incredibly reluctant to have an amnio at 29 weeks. You really would have to have it with a consultant who does one per week at a hospital where they have a solid history of performing amnios. If you do decide to have an amnio, talk to the consultant who will be performing it. Ask for his/her statistics as well as the hospital's.
Have they mentioned what other trisomies they think it might be?

Thanks for the replies.

They haven't really mentioned any soft markers apart from from the NT measurement which was 2.9mm at 11+5, although bloods were pretty good BHCG 1.21 PAPPA 0.81 and of course Harmony was low.
Then yesterday they said there were only 2 vessels in the chord but 3 were recorded at 20 weeks, so I find that confusing and they said it can be hard to tell.
I'm not sure what chromosomal issue they think it could be. I worry a little because out of all his measurements his head is smallest. Then I read the head is hard to measure and parts grow at different rates.
I just feel like they've created a lot more stress and they haven't got anything definitive to say. Which I guess is why they suggest the amnio but i don't feel like they've actually given me reason to have one. Not that I would.
In my notes from the scan yesterday they actually written "the patient is committed to the pregnancy and has declined invasive testing" why wouldn't I be committed?? I'm 29 weeks along, he's an IVF baby so very, very much wanted and they haven't even found anything wrong apart from he's small. The whole thing makes me sad and cross.
Sorry that was a bit of a rant but emotionally I feel a little all over the place.

I think what they are saying by that phrase is that you are indicating to them that you are not willing to consider ending your pregnancy if there is a significant problem with your baby. Which is important for professionals to know, because termination is legal until term for significant foetal abnormality.

I think there are two things to consider here. Whether you would want to know so you could terminate is at the forefront of many people's minds, but having had a daughter who has SN, who wasn't diagnosed until she was nearly 3 and is now in special school, I would love to have known and been prepared to give her the best start in life.

I declined the triple test, no nuchal fold available at the time, and wouldn't have had an amnio, as no intention to abort, but it did mean that I have no pregnancy info to give our geneticist now. We're in the 100,000 genome trial to try and find out why her brain is the way it is.

I hope they can help you have a successful pregnancy

Try not to read too much into a comment like that in your notes. It is only clarifying your position, which is that you are going ahead without an amnio. It's not a judgement of you, just a statement of fact.

No wonder you're feeling all over the place - you've been given a load of unhelpful and inconclusive information, and all you can do now is wait and see. In your position, I would have done exactly the same and refused the amnio, as I suspect a lot of people would.

I think I find that statement frustrating because it suggests they've given us a reason for a invasive testing when to my mind they haven't.
When I spoke to my midwife about it she couldn't even understand why we'd been referred for the fetal medicine scan and thought we just needed additional growth scans.
So unless there really is something they're not telling us then I just feel like they're making us worry unnecessarily.
lougle I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. My sister has Downs so I have some insight into family life with chromosomal issues. Part of me really does want to know definitively but then I think I would never terminate so what's the point.
We really need to wait till the next scan but it just feels like a lifetime away.

Oh please don't be sorry, she's amazing

Oh I didn't mean it like that. I just meant sorry it didn't work out as you initially thought.