Uterine Artery Blood Flow

[Soph73]

A colleague of mine has just been told that her uterine arteries aren't working properly. Her baby is fine at the moment & looks healthy but the Dr's have told her that because the arteries aren´t working properly there could be a problem with the baby's development. Can anyone advise asap. Thanks.

Ive been told the same thing, but can find absolutely no information anywhere I was told by the radiographer that i have "bilateral notching" - is your colleague the same?

I may be off the mark here, but in my last pregnancy I had frequent uterine artery blood flow doppler scans as compromised flow (notching or reduced or wrong-direction flow) can be an early indicator of pre-eclampsia and/or IUGR (intra-uterine growth retardation) and thus possible premature birth. I had severe PE with DS so they were watching me carefully in my second pregnancy. There is some good information here about the artery flow patterns and their possible meanings:

www.centrus.com.br/DiplomaFMF/SeriesFMF/doppler/capitulos-html/chapter_05.htm

Definitely push your obs team for more info and check that repeat monitoring will take place. There is lots more info about pre-eclampsia at the APEC website:

www.apec.org.uk

Thinking of you as it can be very worrying. Good luck xxx

I've got it, I have to go to the hospital every two weeks, having restricted blood flow means there is a higher chance of developing pre-eclampsia or IUGR, but it is also less than 30% of a chance, so it isn't a given.
I posted on this a while ago, let me find the thread it had some good answers on it. If not stalk leigeandleif! She knows things!

I have a scan in 2 weeks, to check on the notching

Try not to worry jenni, I've had three scans since I found out, baby is still growing fine and my cons said that it's probably happened to me with each of my pregnancies, just been undiscovered, with my first I had placental abruption but my second DS was born by CS at 39weeks and weighed 8lb7.5oz, there was no IUGR, no pre-eclampsia and no problem whatsoever, in fact I had low blood pressure rather than high!

So it's just something they like to know and keep on top of, at my previous hospital they didn't even bother to check for it

Thank you so much ladies. My colleague is feeling a lot better about it all now & hopefully she´ll be monitored & everything will be OK. I´ve passed on all your comments & helpful links to her.

here is the thread I posted a while ago re:uterine blood flow.

Didn't realise I had given the impression of knowing things VictorianSqualor!

Jenni, must be a big worry and I'm surprised your doctor hasn't told you more, but it seems like they are keeping an eye on you. Like previous posters said, you are at an increased risk of the baby being delievered early due to pre-eclampsia, IUGR or placental abruption, but this is definitely NOT a given! You should be aware of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia though (headaches, visual disturbances, sudden swelling esp of hands, face or feet, and pain under the ribs) and get a mw or doctor to check you out immediately if any of those crop up. Likewise any bleeding. Best of luck.

Lol, I flipping knew I spelt your name wrong as well!

Thanks for all your info guys, you've told me far more than my MW has!