Excess fluid in ventricles in 20 week Scan- Anyone else had this??

[Jessikahxx]

I had my 20 week scan last week and they discovered that the fluid found in the ventricles was 11mm when it shouldnt be more than 10mm. We were referred to a fetal medicine clinic where they did another scan and said the fluid was 11mm and should be 10mm but they didnt find any other abnormalities.
They offered me an amniocentisis to see if there was any chromosonal disorder but I declined as I've already had one miscarriage this year and I know the rates of miscarriage are only small but if I miscarried again this year it would devastate me.
I've been trying to find out if anyone has ever had this experience and what then outcome was? The doc said the fluid may go down on its own, it may just stay the same, or it may increase but I just dont feel I've got anything at all from the scans. They havnt told us if people have this and everything is ok, or if people have this and things are terrible. It would be so much more helpful if you could speak to people that have been through something similar and know what their outcome was!! They just dont give you anything definative!
I have a cousin who has Hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain) so I know what that entails but I dont know if just being 1mm over the norm at 20weeks is that uncommon?!!! HELP!!

11 mm is very mild. The term to google is ventriculomegaly.

I had the same thing with my son, who is now 2 and a half and doing very well. He has dwarfism. Look in my profile and you can see how lovely he is!

As I understand it as a stand-alone problem you're dealing with ventriculomegaly or, if the problem gets worse (over 15 mm), hydrocephalus. The latter is treatable, as you know. Ventriculomegaly carries a prognosis of 60 % develop normally, 40 % have moderate to severe learning difficulties (not sure if I remember this right, if you google it it should come up).

Often increased fluid is an indicator for something else though. Like in our son's case - dwarfism. If you search the boards look also for posts by the MNer Arabica - her dd had the same finding in pregnancy and has some special needs. Also look for posts by mrsdarcy - again, similar problem, doing very well now I believe.

Just to reiterate though, 11 mm is extremely mild and will very likely come to nothing.

Good luck!

Thank you for your reassurance.

The doctor was not nice when explaining to us what it may or may not be. She really layed it on thick that there is probably going to be something wrong.

When I declined the amniocentisis explaining that either way we wouldnt change our mind about keeping our baby she seemed really offish about it and gave me a card saying here's our number if you have a change of heart implying that I'd made the wrong decision.

I just want to hear it from both sides you know, people who have been through it and had a good ending and people who have been through it and maybe not had such a lucky outcome just so I'm prepared either way.

x

I had this with dd3. She was measuring small for dates, had mild ventricularmegarly and mild hydronephrosis. Dd3 has a genetic condition called Hypomelanosis of Ito, although this didn't become obvious until she was a few months old. My understanding is that the more anomolies that they find, the greater the chance of there being a genetic problem, although still not a definite.

I hope you can take comfort that they have only found one very small problem, which as emkana says will hopefully come to nothing.

I'm also hoping they have offered you further scans to see if this resolves in the next couple of weeks.

You could also try contacting arc

Btw dd3 is a very happy little girl who is currently single handedly wrecking my sitting room!