I don't understand my growth chart? Is this good or bad?

[Biooilandcarbs]

I had my 25 week appointment a week ago and I have noticed this on my Maternity Notes app.

I'm finding my first experience of being pregnant a bit meh to be honest in terms of getting any info from my midwife. She won't explain anything to me and just tell me to look at my app and read the leaflets.

But what is this? I'm assuming my baby is the dot but is this good, bad, ok?

The pre-plotted lines show the sizes of babies born on particular centiles as they develop, to mother's with a similar starting weight/BMI to yourself (I think that's how it's customised-someone more knowledgeable hopefully be along to correct me!). The stats are gathered and averaged out for the growth chart programme.

So your baby bump is a bit bigger than average for mothers with similar starting points (which is the the green line, 50th centile) but not massively so (where the plot would be on one of the higher up pre-plotted lines). The idea is they like you to follow a similar curve on the line at each measure as that shows consistent growth.

Those lines are percentiles and I presume as it was your midwife, then this will be fundal height ( when she measured your bump)
Percentile (for fundal height for example) they take 100 women's measurements and put them smallest to biggest.
So if your on the 50th percentile, there will be 49 women smaller than you and 50 bigger for example. They only see it as a concern really if say one measurement you're 50th and jump to 80th.
Or in general you are above 90th or below 10th.

They tend to like to see you follow that arched line and stay around the same percentile.

I'm rubbish at explaining things 😂 hopefully someone else can better

I think what they'll be looking for is that you're (roughly) staying in the same place relative to the coloured lines going across the graph. So one point on its own doesn't tell you much, but once you've had a few appointments you should see them following the same general pattern.

Green is the 50th percentile, percentiles are for women your height and weight these lines are the babies weight distributions. So if a baby goes below 10% this is 10 out of 100 women have babies in this weight range.

Anything high or low will trigger extra scans or if the dot moves around a lot. A normal variation is 20-30%.

Your dot is above 50 and I’m not sure if the purple and pink are 10/25/75/90 or 3/10/90/97 percentiles as it depends on your areas.

Basically your baby is growing perfectly well and no concern for being big or small.

I'm with you on being confused I was 35 weeks measuring 41 😐 I have a growth scan on 7th but it's hard to understand.

My midwife did say that as long as your baby grown consistently it's fine and not on the bottom or top line as that when they are concerned and want to do checks.

@Rebecca299

I'm with you on being confused I was 35 weeks measuring 41 😐 I have a growth scan on 7th but it's hard to understand.

My midwife did say that as long as your baby grown consistently it's fine and not on the bottom or top line as that when they are concerned and want to do checks.

With yours, try not to worry too much. Fundal height is massively outdated but they need something to go by roughly. I've never known anyone to go for a growth scan due to fundal height and there actually be an issue

Anything within the top and bottom lines is considered okay. The middle green line is the 50th centile (average)

@SnooperTrooper12345 Yeah we knew she was gonna be bigger my DD was 9bl3 and got stuck, the consultant is still pushing for a natural birth

Don't think I could hack all those stitches again 🤣

[quote Rebecca299]@SnooperTrooper12345 Yeah we knew she was gonna be bigger my DD was 9bl3 and got stuck, the consultant is still pushing for a natural birth

Don't think I could hack all those stitches again 🤣 [/quote]
I feel you! My second was 11lbs and had a 3rd degree tear 😂
I've made it clear to them this time I do not want to go over my due date with this one and risk it again!
I did try to push for a csection but they weren't having it!
Got a sweep Wednesday and induction booked for Monday!