Please help. Femur measuring 3 weeks behind at 34 weeks

[smokealarm]

Can anyone call me down?

Had a growth scan at 32 weeks (I'm scanned regularly due to a previous late loss), and our baby's femur length had dropped from 20th percentile (from 28 week scan) to 9th percentile. Re-scanned today at 34 weeks and the femur has dropped to below the 5th percentile or 3 weeks behind.

The humerus is measuring 2 weeks behind.
The baby is measuring on the 30-40th percentile for everything else including head circumference.

I've been referred to a fetal medicine consultant on Thursday for another scan but in the meantime I've been googling and it comes back with the possibility our baby may have Down's syndrome or dwarfism.

I had the Harmony test done privately in early pregnancy which came back negative to rule out Down's syndrome but nothing is 100% is it?

Can anyone shed some light?! I'm crying and panicking and DH away for work so no one to talk to.

I just feel so unlucky given our history of losing our son in a previous pregnancy. To get so far along again and for something to go wrong just has me in bits.

Just wanted to put ny experience here as id myself worried sick same as you. At my 20 wk scan which was at 20wks my little girls femurs measured 6 days ahead, at 28 weeks they measured 6 days behind so dropped 12 days in 7 weeks! 34wk scan measured 15 days behind & on 12th centile, her head was around 50th & abdominal around 80th. I fretted as both my husband and i are tall. She was born 8 weeks ago perfect at 51cm! She is now 58cm. Moral is try not to worry even though so hard & ill not be worrying about scans again!

Thanks for everyone's positive stories very encouraging!

They measured/scanned my DC often. Every measurement indicated dwarfism. Absolutely not the case! The measurements were WAY out. Please try not to worry

My daughters head measured 31 weeks at 37 week scan and they delivered the next day - her head was small-ish (hats fell off!) but she’s now a completely normal developing (exceeding all milestones) 5 months old with a very average size head! They consultant told me her head looked totally normal just little -he said “your baby is the reason shops make tiny baby hats don’t worry” he was right thank god! Try not to worry.

Just to update everyone and for anyone reading this in the future with the same concerns - the consultant this morning was the least bit worried about Down's syndrome or dwarfism to the point where she only spent 2 seconds looking at the femur just to show us on the screen that it was there! She basically said we are expecting a small baby as all the other measurements were below average and her main worry was checking the blood flow to the brain and through the umbilical cord (all perfectly normal!). She suspects the baby is SGA or maybe has some IUGR issues and at my next growth scan in 2 weeks we will determine if the baby needs to come out sooner.

I also found huge comfort in reading this short scientific paper/study if anyone in a similar position to me wants to take a look: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3345228/

Hi @smokealarm that's great news and so reassuring. Have they give you new measurements and would you mind sharing? Tried to pm you but have not quite figured out how to

Hi @Sunandsea1 the consultant didn't even bother to re-measure the femur today as she was so confident nothing was wrong with baby re skeletal issues, but the femur length measured at 34 weeks was 59.8mm which put me under the 5th percentile/measuring 31w rather than 34w (which is still worrying me but I'm trying to take comfort from the reassurance today!).

Hello. I just wanted to update this thread for anyone in the same position as me and trying to find information online.

My baby's femur length on her last scan at 36 weeks was on the 3rd percentile and technically "off the chart" as the chart is only plotted from the 5th to the 95th percentile so it was worrying to see a dot outside the normal parameters.

My daughter was born earlier this week, perfectly healthy, with small arms and legs in perfect proportion to her little body. I had spent so many weeks crying and not sleeping for fear of how our baby might turn out once she's born. My pregnancy was just so unenjoyable but here I am feeling very grateful for a healthy baby.

Hope this helps someone in a similar situation to me.

I'm so glad to hear your sweet little baby is ok! I hope you are ok too. You have been through so much stress and worry and it's a lot to recover from. I'm so sorry you went through all that. Be kind to yourself and ask for support if you feel you need it.

Thinking of you and your baby. Thanks so much for the update. And congratulations mummy!!! xxxx

Congratulations, how lovely!

My twins are dinky too but absolutely perfect

Lovely update! Congratulations on the birth of your little girl!

Congrats OP! Glad to hear all is ok x

Huge congratulations on the safe arrival of your wee bundle of love! X

Thank you for posting your update. So sorry you had such an awful time while pregnancy but congratulations on your perfect little girl!

Thanks everyone ☺️

Bless your heart, so pleased your little girl is here safe and well. My latest granddaughter was born three months ago after similar worries. She was a tiny thing, but outgrew all her clothes at an alarming rate and is a real whopper now! Enjoy your baby

Congratulations on your healthy happy baby OP!

I had a similar situation where Baby was showing as on 5th percentile for femur, both me and partner worried about it so much... our baby boy was born a few weeks ago at a dinky 6.5lbs.

Turns out he has got little thighs compared to the rest of him but he's actually really quite long everywhere else! He's measuring 53cm at 3 weeks and already in 0-3 clothes.

In hindsight we shouldn't have worried so much even though it's so easily said than done. When really think about it rationally, both me and my partner have smaller legs and get added inches to our heights from our longer torsos - so looks like baby is the same!

Just wanted to add to this as I knew I searched Mumsnet forums so much for this topic and it really helped me gain some reassurance!

Hi all I know this is an oldish thread but I’m going through something similar 28 weeks and been having growth scans since 20 weeks for short femur and humerus ranged between 9th and 3rd percentile up and down today again measured between 3rd-5th so have to go back in 2 weeks times for another growth scan. She said they obviously have to make me aware it can be due to genetic reasons but most likely just a small baby. It's so nice to read all your lovely positive stories, just wondering if anyone else currently going through this looking at all these posts! Thanks 😊 x

Would love an update on this thread as just had similar results, and starting to worry.

Hi @OzMum3 .. I can update and say I had my baby boy and he was absolutely perfect! However is arms and leg measurements were lagging behind because I had problems with my placenta that caused me to have an abruption at 31 + 4 weeks ... that aside though my son spent some time in NICU but was home 6 weeks later and is healthy. You'd never know his arms and legs were measuring short... in fact at the hospital all the nurses commented that they were long! I'm sure your little one will be absolutely fine xx

Hello everyone,

I hope my post will be helpful for someone in future.

At our 35 weeks scan we went for a rutin scan and find out our baby femur was less then 5 percentile humerus less than 3 percentile.

Midwife who did the scan wasn't very happy with that and did a referral to UCLH fetal unit in order to have it checked from someone competent.

The appointment was booked one week after, we had a very scary week ahead and I wasn't sleeping.

Finally the appointment arrived and the doctor didn't have any concerns even though our baby wasn't growing much he said he was following he is own line and it was more or less 5 percentile on femur, 4 percentile on humerus, 50 percentile on HC, 30 percentile AC.

We had a second scan booked 2 weeks after and second doctor agreed on theory of fetus growing on his own line just been on the smallest side.

My baby was born 1 week ago due to induction at 40 weeks 2650 gr in the smallest side but all ok .

I remember me looking on internet for weeks and barely find someone posting after baby was born.
If you have any concerns go and see a doctor specialise in grow scan don't look online it won't help, don't try to compare your babies with others ( I did this mistake) .

Thanks

Olde post - currently on the same boat. Any updates you could share with your LO? Hope all is well 🙏🏻💙

@Babyisi Happy to report that DD is a happy, healthy, and thriving 4yo.

She is, however, incredibly petite. She is on the 9th percentile for height and weight. At 4.5yrs she weighs 14.7kg and wears size 3 clothes. She is small but mighty, a little pocket rocket that won her running race at pre-school against children who have far longer legs than her ☺️

Congratulations and So happy to hear that ! Wishing you all the best 💙🙏🏻 were the doctors refering anything to you about achondroplasia(dwarfism) when your femur% were low. or was it just you reading from Google( thats what im doing exactly)

Thank you so much for this. For sharing your story and outcome 🙏🏻all the best xx