Tell me your growth scan accuracy stories please! Baby measuring big!

[5star123]

I’m 39w+3d and growth scans are showing my baby to be on the 97th percentile and estimate its current weight to be just over 9lb. I’ve seen a couple of Doctors and they are recommending that I am induced before I reach full term next week and have even offered me an elective section because of the baby’s size.

My first baby was 6lb 14oz (although was 5 days early) and I know bump size isn’t everything but if anything I am smaller with this baby than I was with her. I’m not uncomfortable and just don’t feel like I’m carrying a 9lb baby. To confuse things even more I had a private scan at 39w which measured me to be bang on my due date and baby to be weighing 7lb 7oz - the NHS doctors are adamant that this is wrong.

Can you tell me your experiences of growth scans and how accurate/inaccurate they were? I would desperately like to avoid intervention but it’s so hard when you have Doctors advising otherwise!

Congratulations OP!

My baby weighed the same as yours!

Congratulations! That's a good weight too ☺️

Congrats !! 🍾🍾🍾 🍾

Very close in my case - estimated 5 lbs at the scan, he was 4 lbs 13 oz five days later (born at 35 weeks, he's 50th for weight and 90th for height now though!!)

Oh my goodness I missed your update!! Congratulations 🤗

Congratulations OP 🥳🥳🥳

But how would you feel if you tried vaginal and he got stuck? Forceps or shoulder dystocia manoeuvres could leave you with just as much recovery, and potential long term problems for you and baby.

At 36 weeks dd2 was said to be over 9lbs. Even at induction (37+6) the midwives insisted over 9lb. Dd2 was born naturally an weighed 8lbs 6oz. Not the size they were predicting but overall was very happy I took the induction offer!

In france, where I gave birth, nobody mentioned anything about the size of my baby, apart from the charts they give you after the scans. There was no bump measurement or anything like that. In the prenatal hospital classes they said that big baby and small baby is all relative to the mother’s anatomy, their pelvis and how the labour goes.
In the end my baby was a medically “big” baby (4090g) but I’m really glad I didn’t know that before.
I had a ventouse and episiotomy: ventouse because of exhaustion (I had severe vomiting during labour, labour started at bedtime and was 19hrs, no pain relief, and I didn’t have the strength to push). Episiotomy probably because he was big (his shoulders got stuck: shoulder dystocia). The ventouse was horrible but the episiotomy was absolutely fine, didn’t hurt and healed back just the same, very quickly and very little discomfort.
But before the birth I was adamant I didn’t want an episiotomy, so if I had known I had a “big” baby then I would have been really scared. And fear is the enemy of labour.
My advice is don’t spend the last two weeks of your pregnancy worrying about how big your baby is, but read and study everything you can about physiological birth so you are as best prepared possible, and get support from your loved ones so you feel calm and loved.
all the best 💐

Sorry I just saw he has been born! Huge congratulations

I was meant to be having a 10 pounder. (Strangely enough I was a 10 pounder myself.) The specialist was sure that the scan was wrong. He said that the scans were generally right but for some babies the scan bore very little resemblace to the baby. He was adamant that I wasn't having a 10 pounder as I'd been scanned because I was small for dates. He was right and it was 8 1/2 pounds.

On the other hand one of my friend's had a tiny 5 pounder first baby. She was pregnant again and she had been trying to tell the specialist she was sure the baby was much bigger. Anyway she was pushing away in labour and not making much progress and telling the staff she was pushing as hard as she could. Suddenly the obstetrician yelled to stop pushing and he was gingerly edging out a true 10 1/2 pounder. It was apparently hard to tell who was more white-faced - the mother or the obstetrician. Afterwards, he told her somewhere in her family tree was somebody who had big babies and she should never ever attempt a natural delivery again. She had stitches for miles.

I'd take the elective unless you're a strapping 6 feet tall with child-bearing hips.