How accurate are growth scans? Shitting myself . . .

[Honeybee79]

Hi
I posted earlier in the week due to my concerns about midwife feeling bump and estimating a large baby which I concluded might have been a fairly inaccurate way of calculating baby's size. Anyway, have had a growth scan today at 38 +1 and estimated weight today is 8lb 5oz and about 9lb 5oz at 40 weeks - I'm a bit shocked as FH measurements have been a couple of weeks behind throughout the pregnancy and am really worried about having a huge baby, going overdue and then having an even bigger baby.

How accurate or inaccurate were your growth scans??

Could really do with some reassurance . . .

Thanks

my 10lb-10.5lb baby as per growth scan was born at 39+6 weighing 8lb1oz

well mine won't help- I was told a 8lber 3 days before I gave birth to a 9lb 5er!!!

but yes they are notoriously innaccurate!

I was told I was having a 10lb+ baby. He was 6lbs 13oz :o

They are notoriously inaccurate. I never had a growth scan, but my mw said all of my babies were feeling quite small, but the smallest was 9lb12, the biggest 10lb12!!!

Notoriously accurate to within 1 lb either way. ;)

My "might just make 5lbs" baby was 7lbs 9oz.

Hth

They are well known for being inaccurate so try not to worry too much (and in my experience they tend to over, rather than under estimate!)

And try not to worry too much about a big baby. I've had 3 big baby boys ranging from 9lb 6 to 10lb 2 - all naturally with a whiff of gas and air....

VERY VERY inaccurate. I can recount over 50 experiences of mums I know who have had vastly different sized babies to those predicted by midwifes or by scans.

Personally only had one growth scan prediction. Predicted 7lbs 5 at term. Was 9lbs 12 at term.

Load of tosh in my view

My firend was told her baby would be very small. She was 8lbs 3. Fret ye not X

Oh thank you. I feel much better now. Wish I had said I didn't want the damn scan. Not like there's much I can do about it anyway!

Scans to estimate size for big babies can be 10+% out either way so not very accurate. With my 1st I was told it was a big baby, 10lb+ at term they thought. Was 9lb15 at 39 weeks, 2nd baby midwife thought was around 8.5lbs, was 10lb7.

I work on the basis that if you don't have gestational diabetes you make a baby the right size for you and I would second Starlights comments about an easier birth. Ds2 arrived after a 2.5 hour labour, with a small tear that did not require sutures, 2nd stage was recorded as just 2 minutes!!

However, dc3 is due in 5 weeks and measuring a scary 7 cms bigger!! Growth scan on tuesday next week for me.

I was told baby was 7lb 12oz. Baby was born 4 hours later weighing a whole pound less.

Scans will tell you a lot about the structure of the baby (eg length), but not the amount of flesh on the bones. So if by size, you mean weight, then not accurate at all.

But if you are looking for the (very rare) possibility the baby will be too big to pass through the pelvis, they are very accurate; as indeed they are in looking at the presentation of the potentially large baby in case it would be a struggle to get it through. These would be based on the head circumference, which again can be measured accurately.

I was told at 35 wks IIRC that ds was 7.5 already. He was born at 38 at about 7lbs.

I was measuring 6 weeks smaller consistantly throughout the third trimester. However, I was still a bit worried about have a big baby as I weighed 9lb 7ozs when I was born! I asked the midwife this during one of my many growth scans, and she laughed at me and said 'if you've got a 9lb baby in there you can come in and get your money back'. DS was born 2 days later 8lb 6.5ozs

Sounds like my GP whenskiesaregrey. Went in to see him to rule out a dvt after finding a strange lump on my calf on my due date.(It was just a bruise/knock.)

Anyhow, small talk about the pregnancy withi t being my due date and all - and I commented that I was hoping it would be out soon before it weighed 11lbs instead of ten. He laughed and said absolute nonsense, it was nothing bigger than 8lbs. I was fairly sure it was 10lb something - but GP was adamant ..... baby arrived 3 days later - 10lbs 2oz. Doctors eh!

I was sent for growth scans a few weeks before because they thought DS would be very small, and the day I was induced, one of the doctors said to me, "You've got a nice 9lber in there!".

He weighed 7lb9oz.

So bollocks IMVHO!

I had fortnightly growth scans with DS2 was who supposed to be tiny, he was 7lb15oz, although funnily enough now he's three he is tiny, average hight of 18month old!

I would take it all with a pinch of salt!

But even if it is big, don;t worry. So long as there isn;t a real problem, like you having a very narrow or fixed pelvis (which they would have told you about already) the size of the baby makes very little difference to the birth. Honestly,

My friends baba was born last night. They were going to induce her today cause he was looking to be 12lbs. He was 7lbs 15oz...

I'm worried mine will go the other way now though and he'll be huge even though he looks to be normal sized. Fingers crossed I'll find out soon, getting rather uncomfortable period type pain at the mo...

Don't worry. Bigger babies are actually aided by gravity and the increased pressure on the cervix helps too. Head circumference is usually the problem with a baby who won't fit (something that as others have said, can be gauged more accurately). It's not that often that a baby is 'unbirthable' due to size alone. I know one person who it happened to. She is 5ft nothing, her husband is a 6ft 7" Maori. Their dd weighed 12lbs and was extraordinarily long.

My Mum was told I would be 'a whopper'. I was 5lbs.

Likewise, sil was told dn would be 'at least 10lbs' and she was 6lbs 13oz.

I was told that they wouldn't estimate weight at birth because they were so innaccurate.

I had a growth scan that predicted 9lb 8oz...4 days later he popped out at 10lb 6oz.

Even the sonogropher said it was a waste of time trying to estimate the size at this stage.

The one thing they did say was that his arm and leg length was off the scale.....they were right about that.He is massivly tall and way off the charts.
BUT he didn't have a big head and was skinny so had I had a vaginal birth it shouldn't have been more of a problem than having an 8lber.