Short femur reassurance

[Byets]

Has anyone had femurs measuring substantially smaller than the rest of their babies measurements?

At a 32 weeks scan yesterday the baby is measuring between 80-99 percentile for everything but femurs are measuring near the bottom of average?

Is this concerning? The sonographer didn't seem concerned or mention anything. But I am seriously freaking out and I don't know why!!

[Byets]

I have attached the picture of the measurements.

[sqirrelfriends]

Hi OP, I haven't been through this but I have had concerns before about test results (low paap-a). Reading online just freaked me out but when I spoke to my midwife she was lovely and rang the hospital for me. It turned out I was above a thread hold for it to be a concern, and this really helped put my mind at ease.

It looks from your picture that the femur length is at about 20th centile the only study I could find was looking at babies with femurs below the 10th and most of them turned out with nothing wrong. I really would consider calling your midwife, they wouldn't want you to be worried.

[Byets]

@sqirrelfriends thank you for your reply 😊 it is reassuring that you've only found studies under 10th percentile. I really am considering speaking with a midwife to try and get some reassurance because I don't want to just sit here and overthink it!

I really think sonographers should explain things to you so they don't send you away completely confused!

[krispycreme]

Looking at the report the femur length is within normal range so I'd try not to worry. I think baby will likely be fairly short. How tall are you and the dad? That said DD femur length was off the chart and me and DH aren't particularly tall. I'v been through fetal medicine for suspected DS, if the sonographer had any concern at all you would of been referred - they are very thorough in that regard.

[Dinosharks]

I'm 33 weeks and they've mentioned short femur length at my last 2 scans, 28 & 31 weeks, difference in our situations is my baby is measuring small in all areas.
The first scan they said baby might just have short legs but it doesn't mean they won't be an average height. The last time they were a little more concerned so they checked arm length as well as if both are short it's more likely there is a sign something else is going on. Having spoken to a consultant the leg length is short but still within the normal ranges so they are not concerned. As my consultant said she is being paid to worry and she's not so I should try not to either.

I think it's easy to get concerned at anything unusual with the scans especially if it's not discussed at the time. I would definitely agree with @sqirrelfriends and talk to the midwife/hospital they would much rather put your mind at ease than have you worrying about things

[Byets]

@krispycreme thank you for replying, I'm 5 ft 7 and my partners about 5 ft 10 so neither of us are short! That's partly why I am also confused, no one in our families are particularly short. Maybe he'll have long calves and body🤣

@Dinosharks I'm sorry to hear they've had a few concerns with your baby but I'm glad everything has turned out to be okay 😊 that's reassuring that they did some further tests on you as they had concerns. Hopefully I'm just overthinking and the sonographer would have said and referred me on if she thought there may be a problem.

[krispycreme]

Me and DH are similar heights, well he's 6ft. DD3 femur measurement was similar. I can now see from my older ones that there is so much height variation initially but then as they get older they tend to level out. By all means mention it to your midwife to see what she says or at your next growth scan if you have another booked. But as I said we had markers with DD1 and if anything they aired on the side of caution as they themselves don't want to miss any potential issues. So I would try not to worry in the meantime.