Bilobed Placenta

ANDOPANO6

Hello ladies,

I typically post on PAIF, and just learned I am joining the high risk club unfortunately.

I just found out at 25 weeks 5 days that I have a bilobed placenta which can be very dangerous. I am very alarmed and panicked by this news and really can't do much about it right now until my next growth scan in 2 1/2 weeks. My little girl is measuring in the 14% right now which is low due to where her umbilical cord attached on my abnormal placenta. It's not conducive for passing optimal nutrients to baby, I am told.

My question is, does anyone else on this board have this and if so what has your outcome been thus far? It is very rare (only about 4% of pregnancies) so I am really scared. I also have high blood pressure so I am double risk now. Ugh....

 

hkmr

I was just directed to your post because I had made a previous post looking for people who have also experienced this.  I was found to have a bilobed placenta at my 20w anatomy scan.  Luckily so far it is not causing problems, my two lobes are anterior and posterior so luckily no vasa previa for me.  My understanding is that IUGR and vasa previa are the most serious potential complications.  I had my first growth scan today and thankfully she is measuring right on target.  My doctor expects for me the primary complication will be delivery of the placenta.  The risk there is that the tissue connecting the two lobes might tear and therefore I will not deliver all of the placenta tissue.  If this happens, and it sounds like there is a decent chance this will be case, my doctor will either use her hand to pull out the rest of the tissue, or I will need a D&C post delivery, and this also increases my risk of needing a transfusion if there is excess blood loss. 

When I first got told all of this information I got really scared, but I thought of all the questions I had and the concerns I was feeling and discussed these with my doctor at the next appointment I had (I wasn't prepared for this news so didn't know what to ask the first time).  She made me feel significantly better about the whole thing.  You are right, this is pretty rare, but it seems very manageable.  The two things, in my opinion, to keep communicating with your doctor about are, what is the position of the lobes (do you have vasa previa) and how is she growing.  My doctor expects my girl's growth to be fine, but she said if there were issues she would monitor the growth with more frequent scans and hope to keep her in until 37 weeks, she said it would have to be a very significant drop in growth to take her before 34 weeks and 37 would be ideal.  Just remember though, if your doc wants to deliver her early because of growth that means that she will do better outside than in and so it will be what is best for her.

I hope some of this helps you, I know for me it's just nice to know that someone else actually knows what I'm talking about when I say "bi-lobed placenta."