SGA Baby

[Mjlondon]

Hi all, i am freaking out. I am ar 32 weeks and have sga baby. Though doctors are saying there is lower chance of any abnormality i m having nightmares. I am too much concerned abiut baby’s health and how will the baby grow in future? Baby’s just 1.5 KG and considering SGA i might undergo csection. At 37 weeks not sure how much weight baby will gain.
has anyone experience this?

does babys grow normally once born ? Height weight overall health?
how do I care for the baby ? Any specific or special care needed?
does placental insufficiency causes abnormality? Can anything be done from my end to improve it?
what all things should i ask to doctors?
also once baby is born , does paediatrician visit/ or call for regular checkups and monitoring of baby? What all test do they do to check baby?

i just want my baby to be healthy and lead a happy life. I never had this issue in my previous pregnancy. My firstborn is healthy and happy.

can anything please share their experience? TIA

I had an SGA baby - she was 2.6kg at 38w when born. As far as I remember, no special care or extra paeds check ups were needed for the SGA (she needed them for other reasons but not because she was SGA). I had to be very diligent about waking her to feed because small babies can be very sleepy, not feed properly and then get in a downward cycle of being too sleepy to feed, which makes them more tired etc. So we continued waking every 3hrs for quite a long time rather than letting her sleep through. She stayed on a very low centile until we started weaning, and then she actually gained weight a bit better and caught up to her more natural centile (eg. Where we think she should have been based on mine and DH weight/height). At nearly 4yo, she is now 75th centile for both weight and height, so lovely in proportion.

If you are planning to breastfeed, I'd get to a drop in or contact an ibclc very early on so that baby is getting a good latch and plenty of support. That way they are not wasting energy by feeding inefficiently.

My consultant said there was basically nothing that could be done to address the SGA before baby came along. They think mine was caused by raised pressure in one of my uterine arteries / high BP (developed right at the end of pregnancy). It was proposed that I had an induction at 39w, but I went into labour spontaneously before then - I was asked to consent to continuous monitoring because small babies can apparently sometimes start to struggle if labour goes on for a long time. She did start to have to decels during labour but no interventions were needed as she was born very soon after that happened. Obviously, you won't have those issues if you have a csection. Good luck, it all seems scary at the time but hopefully baby will be in your arms soon.

Hey thanks for your response. That was really helpful.

Some babies are just naturally small, with nothing wrong with them and nothing causing them to be small. Anything under 10th perctinile can be classed as SGA. What percentile is your baby on? Have they always been there or has it dropped? Have they measured the blood flow?

Some babies who aren't growing well inside end up growing much better on the outside..other babies just stay the same. E.g. born at 9th percentile and stay there as that is what they are meant to be

Having baby early means they will be smaller at birth than if they stayed in at full term. It's something the doctor and you will have to decide as to when is the best time.

Hey thanks for your response. Yes baby is 3.7 centile dopplers are good for now . Centile is growing never dropped per say and i am undergoing constant scans and stuff . Even now diagnosed with raised BP. I am worried i would atleast like to complete 37 weeks .

Hi. My first baby was SGA but no one knew until I had my c section at 39 weeks. He was 2.4kg. I was asked if we knew he was going to be small.

Weight wise, he’d caught up on the growth charts by 1 and is now hovering on 50th centile.

We had to have a little longer in hospital after he was born and I was asked to take him for weekly growth scans to monitor him up until he was 6 weeks. We were also on 2 hourly feeds until he reached a certain weight (can’t remember what it was now) which was brutal overnight. He’s never been a good eater but is getting better as he gets older.

I’m expecting my second now and have a whole host of extra appointments to make sure we’re not caught out again. I’ve been prescribed aspirin to take until 36 weeks as it apparently helps placenta function.

Hope this helps. Oh and the Asda tiny baby range is pretty good. We only moved to newborn sizes at 3 months! And tiny nappies!

The asprin is supposed to be really helpful. I was prescribed it for first pregnancy - "only" had high BP at the end of my pregnancy. For my second pregnancy I was told not to take it and had high BP way earlier which turned into preeclampsia. Really wish I had just taken it anyway!

I've had 3 SGA babies. I took aspirin for dc2 and dc3 but didn't make a difference. I just have small babies. No issues found and are small as children too but healthy.

My baby was only barely 3kg at 41 weeks. Definitely wake to feed every 2/3 hours and we had to tickle her feet and blow on her face to keep her awake long enough to feed. Small babies can be very very sleepy to begin with.

She's six months now and has caught up. Somewhere around the 32-35th percentile and no lasting affects from her low birth weight.

Mine was 3kg at 40 weeks. Placenta visibly failing which was the obvious cause for her struggling. No issues feeding, gained weight right away didn't drop at all from birth weight. She's now a very average sized 1 year old and her growth restriction does not appear to have impacted her at all.

Hey thats helpful , thank you so much

My SGA was 2.4kg at 36 and a bit weeks. He had difficulty feeding for the first few weeks and needed an NG. We were also on 2hour feeds for about a month. By the time he finished one feed changed and settled we would have about 45 mins till the next one. Was hard work. He's now 2 years old and in the 98th centile for height and weight.

We had scans every two weeks, all consistently showing SGA baby but when he came out he was on the 75th centile… I would always take the scans with a pinch of salt but take the extra monitoring offered and especially the Dopplers

In our antenatal group there was a baby born at 5lb something at 39 and a bit weeks who had initially had feeding issues due to a 100% tongue tie. My daughter was 6lb 13 at 38+6 and by 4 months this baby had overtaken my daughter! I have a photo of 3 girls from this group aged 4 and this child was the tallest of the 3 and my daughter was the smallest even though she had the heaviest birth weight. I'm by far the smallest of the mums so for this group the genetics trumped birth weights.

My baby was SGA (only just) as was on the 9th centile but she was dropping centiles in the womb from 60th to 9th so I was induced on due date. I had low papp a which is a risk factor for this and placental insfuciency but all dopplers to show blood flow etc were fine hence why I didn't have to get induced early just monitored. She was healthy but was very sleepy and hard to feed and had jaundice but that cleared without treatment. She very quickly started gaining weight and jumping centiles and is now on the 91st! So thrived better outside the womb :).

I had an SGA baby born on the 1st centile. He was 5lb 10oz born just shy of 40 weeks. I was having growth scans showing this size but the hospital care was appalling and drs now say he should have been born at 37 weeks or earlier. My placenta was very small. I had a csection which started as an induction but baby didn’t like it, which I think is more common with small babies.

He had a tongue tie which was cut but never latched, in hindsight he just wasn’t strong enough and I formula fed. Prepare for feeding issues as small babies are sleepy and can be weak. He also had hypoglycaemia at birth treated with glucose gels but we were discharged within 24 hours.

Hes still tiny on the 4th centile aged 14 months but is healthy. I’m pregnant again and am high risk in case this baby is small.

Make sure you have tiny baby clothes as he didn’t get into newborn for a good month or so. At 14 months he still wears 6-9 months clothes!

I second size 0 nappies! I also saw the health visitor every fortnight for weighing until he was 6 months as his weight gain was very slow.