Dr. just called about umbilical cord "variation"

lilfluke

I just had my 20 week u/s yesterday and I just received a call from "genetics" telling me that after reviewing the u/s pics they saw that my umbilical cord has only 2 veins (that carry blood to and from the baby) instead of the usual 3. She said that they see this "variation" at least a few times a week and that in 99% of all cases it does not cause ANY problems, and that the babies are almost always born totally healthy. She said that in the very few cases where something DOES go wrong it usually involves the heart or kidneys. She said that she reviewed my u/s and all of the organs look perfect, but that she just needs to have me come in for another u/s on Monday so they can take some more photos and double check everything. As you can imagine, I am trying not to "freak out" but it is hard. I know that this is most likely "nothing", but I can't stop worrying.

If anyone has been diagnosed with this same thing, or has even heard of this "variance" in the umbilical cord, please share with me. TIA

csprenkle

My girlfriend had this with her first...she just had to go for a lot of 'extra' appointments.  More u/s, stress tests and monitoring.  Her daughter weighed on the tiny size- maybe 5 1/2 lbs.  She is a very healthy 3 yr old now and her 2nd pregnancy was fine too.

rohansmom

I have heard of this. You get to see your little one againand it will bring you paece of mind-take care of your self and try to relax

aborgra

I do fetal echocardiography, and one thing we are trained to look for is 2 vessel cords.  This is usually to clue you in to look harder for other abnormalities and doesn't necessarily cause any problems itself.  If everything else looked fine on the u/s, I wouldn't worry.  They'll take a closer look at all the organs on the next u/s to make sure, but most likely everything is fine.  We'll keep you and your LO in our prayers!

honeybearsgirl

I hope you see this. Sorry I could not post earlier, but I was leaving work and things got crazy at home.

I wanted to tell you I had this with my son, now 3. I freaked out too for the same reasons: the possibility of birth defects including organ problems. None of that happened. We had more u/s and testing, but in the end DS was born healthy 3 days early and weighed in at nearly 10 pounds.

He is now a happy 3-year-old. He is smart as a whip and healthy as a horse (hello cliches) except for an unrelated speech delay (he talks up a storm but his articulation is poor) and a peanut allergy (we just found this out, ugh).

I am now 17 weeks pregnant with my second and I am wondering if I will have the same issue the second time.

Try not to worry, although believe me, I know how hard it is. And it doesn't get any easier when they get older, LOL.