Please pray for our little man
We had our anatomy scan last friday, and even though we have known for a while that we our having another little boy. Just to see him move around and smile made our hearts light up. Our smiles turned to tears after the tech would not answer my question on why he was sending alot of time looking at his heart. I am a nurse so I could tell by his reaction to something was wrong. After being left in the room by ourselves for a while the doctor came in and said that they found a white growth under the baby heart that can affiliated with downs syndrome. The only way that they can be sure is sample of the amniotic fluid. Of course since I am only 21 weeks I am at risk of losing the baby worse case scenario. Of course not an option in my book, he will be loved no matter what. We our now waiting on blood work to come back to see what side of the scale he is on. Please pray for us. Thank You,
Autumn
Re: Please pray for our little man
BFP #2 ~ 4/22/2010 ~ EDD 12/29/2010 ~ Born 12/19/2010 ~ My Rainbow Baby
BFP #3 ~ 6/10/2012 ~ EDD 2/20/2013 ~ HB 100bpm @ 9w3d ~ M/C 7/11/2012
BFP #4 ~ 3/16/2013 ~ EDD 11/20/2013 ~ Born 11/17/2013 ~ Rainbow Baby #2
You know that we all will be praying for you. Please keep us posted as to what your son's progress is.
I've heard these white spots on the heart tend to heal on their own and turn out not to be Down's. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
I want to tell everyone thank you so much for thinking about us in your prayers. My Ob is not sure what it is, but the specialist thinks that it may or may not be something. Only way to be sure is more test, the only thing that I will agree to is blood work. Other than that I wont do anything to put my baby at risk just to know ahead of time. What his out come is, will be up to the lord and his will. Thanks again for the thoughts and prayers.
It sounds like an echogenic focus and I really think that they have you much more scared then necessary. If no other tests or physical abnormalities found anything my Dr thinks they should stop even mentioning these. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
Echogenic intracardiac focus (EIF) is a small bright spot seen in the baby?s heart on an ultrasound exam. This is thought to represent mineralization, or small deposits of calcium, in the muscle of the heart. EIFs are found in about 3-5% of normal pregnancies and cause no health problems.
EIFs themselves have no impact on health or heart function. Often the EIF is gone by the third trimester. If there are no problems or chromosome abnormalities, EIFs are considered normal changes, or variants.
They found this on my DS and nothing was wrong. I know how hard it is to hear the news, but really try your best to relax and know that most likely everything with your guy is perfect!!
My doc feels the same way.
Hang in there. Don't always let the doctor's get your hopes down. A relative had a baby with a chromosomal disorder. They said that the baby would probably not be able to lift her head up ever. She is 1.5 years old and light years beyond lifting her head. She is pulling herself up and cruising along (all things they said she could never do).
Sending prayers for you, your DH and your little boy.
First off, let me say that I am sorry you are going through this. Second, I have to echo was PPs are saying if this echogenic cardiac focus. If it is, your doctor sounds almost irresponsible making this big of a deal out of it. Should they have MAJOR concern about this, then they should refer you to genetic counselor to talk you through your odds, the risks of amnio, the accuracy of amnio vs. level-2 ultrasound, etc.
Our LO had an echogenic cardiac focus on his heart at 19w. My doctor and our genetic counselor (we were seeing a GC for another issue) were not concerned at all. Apparently these bright spots are very common. In the Asian population, something like 30% of fetuses have them. While I am not Asian, it helped me understand what a non-issue this is in the absence of any other risk factors. I asked our dr what the follow-up was and he said nothing. He said if this was the old days when he could withhold info, he wouldn't even mention the spot because it is *that* not concerning to him. His phrasing was weird, but I appreciated his sentiment. Because of another issue, I ended up getting a second anatomy scan at 26 weeks and they saw that the spot had already resolved itself.
In the absence of other defects (seen in an NT scan or level-2 ultrasound), one of these focuses is pretty much a non-issue.
Hang in there! While I know that any questionable news is VERY scary (in addition to the focus issue, we dealt with a 1:160 chance of a nueral tube defect), it really sounds like this may be a communication issue.
More Green For Less Green
As other people have said it's pretty common. Our little boy has the same thing on his little heart
My OB actually schedules our NT scans out to a perinatal center even though I am NOT a high risk pregnancy (my scans came back "fabulous") and at our 18 week anatomy scan our Perinatologist Doctor said that our baby had the white spot on his heart but not to worry at all and he DID NOT recommend any further testing because they are so common...he said he'd already seen 3 that day. With my NT scans being so great and the baby being healthy and everything looking and measuring right that he wanted to reassure us to not worry. My OB saw the results and told me the exact same thing. She actually said that she believes in a few years docs wont even mention it anymore cause it's common and causes needless stress and worry on the mother that can harm baby.
I've chosen to not worry, if my baby boy had other markers for downs they would have been found by now and my doctors would have said I need to get further testing. I trust them.