Fetal Brain Fulid higher than Normal, 23 Weeks, Need Advice

Nicki1979

Hello Everyone,

I was just looking for support to see of anyone else is in the same boat as myself/ my baby.  We had our initial ultra sound come back everything Great, except the baby has a slightly higher amount of spinal fluid on his brain than normal.  It's not the fluid behind the neck, it's actually surrounding his brain.  It does flow freely from the left to right side via the corpus callosum (which looks great), it it not trapped in either side.  We went back for the secondary ultra sound for a more specific reading.  To us it is not an alarming number.  Normal is 10mm, and baby is 10.8 and 11.

Is anyone else going throught this right now?  We had a nurse tell us everything should be just fine (99%), and a Very NASTY doctor saying words like downs syndrome and mental retardation.  This is after i had a clear quad screen which i thought was pretty accurate, apparently it is only 60% accurate.  Please help, is anyone else running into this run around game of information.  Did Doc's give you better feed back for your situation?

Thank You!

HeyyRed

The measurements here in Canada are VERY different.

The NT scan has 2.8mm as the cut off for normal here in Canada. Anything under that is terrific. ?Where are they measuring this fluid? ?Here we measure the fluid where the neck will be.

Now I do know, that if you google NT Scan results they will give you the percentages of risk that correspond with increments above the normal rate.

Here, if you are slightly higher, then you have a correspondingly higher chance, but they only start to worry if you are in and around the 5-6mm range. For sure there will be issues then, but the severity has to be determined by an amnio or further tests.

Again, don't let our scale alarm you. If you do google though, you need to put in where this measurement is coming from.

?

GL?

~Soleil~

No advice but I hope everything turns out ok.

robbie3982

I'm not going through it, but my parents did with my sister 18 years ago.  They told my parents that my sister would have all kinds of problems that she didn't end up having.  She does have some disabilities, but nothing like the gloom and doom they predicted.  They basically told my parents that she wouldn't be able to function at all and would have no awareness.  She just had her 18th birthday party yesterday at a bowling alley with all of her little hs friends complete with all the normal teenage stuff like who had new uggs on and the girls being bitchy to each other.  Doctors aren't always right.  I'm sending tons of good vibes your way.

StangJK13

HeyyRed:

The measurements here in Canada are VERY different.

The NT scan has 2.8mm as the cut off for normal here in Canada. Anything under that is terrific.  Where are they measuring this fluid?  Here we measure the fluid where the neck will be.

Now I do know, that if you google NT Scan results they will give you the percentages of risk that correspond with increments above the normal rate.

Here, if you are slightly higher, then you have a correspondingly higher chance, but they only start to worry if you are in and around the 5-6mm range. For sure there will be issues then, but the severity has to be determined by an amnio or further tests.

Again, don't let our scale alarm you. If you do google though, you need to put in where this measurement is coming from.

 

GL 

I'm pretty sure she is talking about a measurement other than the NT Scan.  The NT Scan is normally done around 12-14 weeks and my doctor said anything under 3mm is normal.  I think since she is 23 weeks - this must be something different from NT and therefore the thresholds might be higher.

I haven't had my big u/s yet, so no advice to give.  When I had my NT Scan, my baby was measuring borderline on the first ultrasound at 2.9mm and I was worried - but then I saw a specialist who had more experience with NT Scans, and they re-measured at a 2.6mm, so it made me feel better.  Seeing the specialist definitely put my mind at ease.  They were more knowledgeable about these types of things than my general OB and really took their time in making the measurements to be sure of how close I was to the "normal" limit.

Good luck to you - I hope everything works out.  Stay positive!

jolis_petits_bijoux

I'm sorry I don't have any good advice, but I can definitely relate to what you're going through.  I had a not-so-great quad screen and my DS had choroid plexus cysts (soft marker for Trisomy 18), but a level 2 U/S at the perinatologist's office revealed absolutely no other physical abnormalities.  My research showed that CPCs, in the absence of any other physical abnormalities, never indicate a problem.  We ended up having amnio, and sure enough, DS is fine.

Looking back, I'm still pretty ticked off at the genetic specialists' office.  At my OB's office, both he and the U/S tech thought the CPCs were no big deal and told me not to worry.  But, then I get to a genetic specialist's office, and I'm being told by the doc that my son has a 1:10 chance of having a chromosomal abnormality, and the only way to rule it out is by having amnio, which they recommended.  It was a terrible decision to have to make, a terrible thing to go through, and I truly think (looking back) that the amnio was unnecessary.  FWIW, I'm opting to have no testing during my next pregnancy.  I know that sounds irresponsible, but we wouldn't terminate anyway, and I don't want "odds" and "chances" hanging over my head and scaring the crap out of me, when usually... everything is fine!

Enough about me.  Can they redo your quad screen?  They did redo mine once.  I don't really understand what they "re-did" because they didn't take any more blood.  Apparently, they "re-ran" the numbers.

I don't know anything about fetal brain fluid, and what the normal numbers are.  Is this something they can measure again in 4 weeks or so, with another U/S?  Don't let them scare you.  Do your own research, I did, and I wish I'd done it sooner, before I let the "specialist" put the fear of God into me.    Ask around, and dig up any information you can find about fetal brain fluid, what it indicates, and how far from a "normal" measurement would indicate an anomaly.

Again, so sorry you are going through this.  Those idiot genetic specialists aren't always the most sensitive in delivering their opinions...

lhbride07

We had the same result at our 20 week u/s.  Our son was measuring 11mm.  The midwife freaked us out talking about all of the things that could be wrong with him and sent us to a specialist for another ultrasound.  The specialist also measured 11mm, but basically just said that gives us a 1% chance he could have Downs, but a 99% chance he's fine.  He recommended doing the amnio to find out for sure, but we didn't want to take the risk on a 1% chance.  We were really worried about it at first, but now I feel as though everything's going to be fine.  I think they just tell you all the gloom and doom stuff to cover their you know what.

Nicki1979

Thank You so much for your reply. 

Your son is just fine now, or are you still pregnant?  Did they do more scans through the pregnancy to see if the fluid increased?  And did it?  Or did it ever get better-a lesser number?

It's nice to have some optimism in all this.  We were basically told the same thing just yesturday.  So we are trying to move past it and enjoy the rest of pregnancy.  We are so excited to meet out little guy we can hardly stand the wait. 

You are right, they just give you the worst case senario to cover there butts.  When infact our children will more than likely be just fine. 

 

lhbride07

They just checked his measurements again this week at 25 weeks.  It wasn't the same level of detail as the 20 week u/s, but they said everything looked good and didn't bring up any of the issues from before.  So we're not going to worry too much about it.  I'm sure both of our babies will be fine.  We just have to enjoy the pregnancy and try not to worry.

Nicki1979

Oh, that is very good news that everything is looking good.

Take care!