Advice Needed - Re Small Baby

[thebump]

I've just been for my 22 week scan and although the baby is normal, she's on the small side and we've been scheduled an appointment to see a consultant in the small baby clinic. I was wondering if anyone knew what problems were associated with having a small baby and also if there are any supplements etc I can take to help her along??

Thanks in advance!

thebump it really depends how small, and what is going on in there. My dd was v small as she was prem, but she was also small for her dates IYKWIM.

TBH you are very fortunate that they have picked up on this so early, and are going to monitor you, it will really help. I wish I could give you some information but until you know why the baby is small then there is nothing to suggest.

Good Luck

Hi Thebump. I had this - at my 22 week scan dd was measuring on the small side and the sonographer wasn't sure whether to monitor me or not. She decided that she would. I was scanned every 4 weeks and went under consultant led care. At about 32 weeks one of the measurements, the abdominal circumference, was particularly small so they referred me for further 'doppler' scans where they check the flow of the nutrients along the umbilical cord and round the baby. These were normal but I started having scans every 2 weeks. At 37 weeks I went in for a scan and dd had stopped (or virtually stopped) growing and they recheckd the doppler scans to find that the nutrients were largely flowing up to the head which means there is a problem (as it gets redirected to the brain as this is the most important organ at this stage - v clever !). I was admitted into hospital and induced. This failed so I ended up with a c-section and dd was born at 4 lbs 9 oz at 37 1/2 weeks.

She spent only 4 hours ish in neonatal just to heat her up as she couldn't regulate her temperature and had to have blood sugar tests for the first 12 hours of her life. She also wouldn't breast feed. Apart from these two minor things (in the grand scheme of things) she has not had any problems. She is now 13 weeks old, 10 lbs 8 oz, feeding like a piggy (formula), sleeps through the night and spends most of her time smiling (when she's not hungry or asleep !) and is beautiful (ok am biased !). And despite being small and a little early she is doing everything at the right times and even seems on the advanced side in a number of things.

So, this is how it was for us. All the way through the pregnancy from 22 weeks we thought that it was all a bit of a fuss and that she was just small and in fact the hospital kept telling us she probably was just normally small as both dh and I are small but, in our case, it was a problem - they think probably caused by pre-eclampsia although I didn't show blood pressure signs of this until 37 weeks. Hopefully yours may just be a naturally small baby but if not, please try and be reassured that the fact you are being monitored means that should there be a problem it will be spotted and they can do something about it. I am so pleased that the sonographer erred on the side of caution in my case. One piece of advice I would give, is to be mentally prepared that there is a chance your pregnancy may end in a c-section. I felt I was prepared for this and it didn't cause me any problems (as in 'have I failed?') and in fact recovered quite quickly, partly I think due to the fact I was prepared for this eventuality. As far as I know there isn't anything you can do to help although I was told (on Mumsnet I think) that sleeping on your left side can help the blood flow better and can help growth so definitely worth a try.

Good luck ! Let us know how you get on with the consultant and if there's anything else you want to know just ask !

Here's the thread from when I posted with my first concerns -

My thread !

Thanks everyone!

It's strange to think that baby's size can be related to that of parents, considering I'm quite a curvy lady and my DH is 6"1! Mind you both are parents are quite short people, so perhaps it skipped a generation!!

From what I can gather head and torso, near enough tie up with dates, it just seems to be the legs?

The possibility of evicting her from her comfy little home earlier than expected seems a little frightening (will she survive? etc etc) But I'm just concentrating on the fact that the rest of her is perfect and I'll enjoy seeing more of her at the scans... so in a way, compared to some mums who only get to see their babies twice before they're born.. I'm pretty lucky!!

I think I'll just keep my fingers crossed that shes had a growth spurt before the next scan!!

Am going to try upping my protein and calcium intake! That might help!!

thebump- I think I notched up something like 10 or 11 scans over my pregnancy !! As you say, the upside is that you keep seeing the LO. Mind you, I didn't want to know what we were having and begun to get the feeling it might be a girl as we hadn't seen anything that would suggest she was a boy in all the scans !! Which was quite funny cos otherwise we were convinced she was a boy !!

Good luck - let us know how you get on !

I was told dd2 was a small baby at a 28 week scan i think and so i then had 3 scans done by the consultant, 2 of which were doppler scans.

In the end he decided that although she was small there weren't any probs and she was just not a big boned baby and never likely to be as me and dp aren't big either.

In the end i had her at 34 weeks due to other probs and she was 4lb 14oz, but the consultant said going by that weight he reckoned that had i gone full term she would have been around 7lbs.

Hi thebump

I can't help all that much, because my situation wasn't the same as yours. I did have a small baby (4lb 12oz) but it was because I had placenta praevia and had actually lost bits off the placenta (gross, I know... sorry if TMI) so she was a bit undernourished. She was born by elective CS at 36 weeks. I just wanted to tell you not to worry too much. Even if your baby is small, s/he is much better off inside you right now and they won't deliver him/her until it's safe to do so unless there's a real emergency. (I was in hospital from 27 weeks, but they kept me going till 36 weeks...) My small baby didn't have any real problems except for difficulty feeding at first (she was fed by a tube down her nose for about 2 weeks). Otherwise she was absolutely fine and she is now a totally average (in size, behaviour, etc. - obviously above average in beauty and gorgeousness ) 4-year-old.

Good luck.

I too had a small baby - 4lbs 3oz at 36 weeks. But me previous baby was 5lbs 13oz at 40 weeks and I'm 5'2 so not lkely to have a big baby.

My smallest was in special care for a week and tube fed for a couple of days. He also had a drip giving him sugar so regulate his blood sugar and was under a heat lamp.

It took him a week to get the idea of breast feeding, and I mixed-fed for the 1st month, then managed to get him onto breast milk only (It was a major effor but I was determined).

So basically there were never any problems with him being small. He still is actually - that's just the way he's supposed to be

I do think that consultants tend to err very much on the side of caution these days, often for good reasons, but often this gets us all concerend when there is no reason tobe.

TO be honest I would not go by this much at all, health experts can be very wrong both when estimating size by palpatation and by ultrasound.
at my 23 week scan with my ds they said he was the size of 19 week baby and were a little concerned-just before my due date I was told my baby was about 7lb - 7lb 5oz and at birth my son was a whopping 8lb 13oz's so please try not to worry at all at this stage as your baby still has 18 weeks to grow!

the bump, i had extra growth scans because they thought dd2 was small for dates. she was 8lb 9.5oz when she came out..