37 weeks, LO's arms and legs measuring 3-5%, very worried

julessixer

hi everyone,

I posted last week about my son's growth ultrasound. I was sent for a growth ultrasound at 35 weeks b/c i was measuring a little small (33 weeks at 35).  Turns out my son is in the 13% for overall growth.  Today, I had another regular appt today at 37 weeks, with a different dr, and she told me that the reason he is in the 13th percentile is b/chis arms and legs are measuring in the 3-5 percentile.  His head and his stomach are measuring 25-30th %

She told me short arms and legs are typically soft markers for downs syndrome but the were all but able to rule that out within 95% certainty with the genetic testing we had done at 14 weeks.  Also, she felt they could rule out dwarfism b/c they didn't detect any skeletal abnormalities.

I asked for another ultrasound, but she said they wouldn't send me for one, b/c it wouldn't be "medically significant" She said that all of his organs look great and I am growing week to week by their measurements.  Pretty much she said the only thing to do is wait until he is born to make sure he ok.  I haven't been able to stop crying since I left the drs, I am just terrified something is terribly wrong with our son.  Its not even so much the he is measuring in the 13% that I am scared about, its the extremely short arms and legs measurements. 

Does anyone have any experience with short measurements in their babies arms and legs?  What did your drs tell you?  

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macaroni1979

i also don't have any experience with this, but wanted to let you know i'll keep you in my thoughts. hopefully it means nothing and you are just having a healthy, little baby! i know this must be a hard/emotional time for you, {{big hugs}}

abigailhester

i do not personally have experience with this but a friend of mine did. her son measured all over the place her whole pregnancy. his arms and legs were short, his head was big, torso was long...he was born with no problems at all and is perfect. 

 i hope you find the same with your little one.

 and if it makes a difference to you, my son measured fine the whole pregnancy and now has a verrrryyy large head and skinny body. 95% head, 95% height and 25-30% weight.

 good luck 

MummyGruetzie

When I was pregnant with my first daughter there were a lot of growth concerns, but none of them specifically dealt with arms and legs. I was on bed-rest for preterm labor very early on and her growth percentiles started dropping. There was talk about IUGR and delivering early and then more bed rest when that was finally ruled out. At one point we even got the steroid shots, because they were afraid the medicine wasn't going to hold her off anymore and we'd need her lungs to be ready. It was all very scary. I spent so much of my pregnancy being so so scared that something was wrong. In the end nothing was. I'm so sorry that you're going through these emotions right now. The angst of not knowing if your baby is okay is terribly frightening. I wish only the best for you and your sweet baby.

Aimelynn

I've been trying to respond to this message for a couple of days now, but unfortunateIy I was one of the Nesties who had the account verification message and wasn't able to post anything. Anyway . . . my son has three short limbs (both arms and one leg). His limb differences were discovered at my 23 week ultrasound, and we were told that he would likely have a genetic syndrome that will affect his other body systems. Thankfully, however, Drew is completely healthy! I remember how sad and scared we felt in the days immediately after our ultrasound. It was really hard not knowing if our little man was going to be OK. I know that ultrasounds are often wrong, but if yours isn't I want you to know that you will still be OK.  

My husband and I were just talking the other day, and we both said that we wished we could have had a time machine so we could have seen what life would be like a year in the future. Drew has brought so much joy into our lives, and we are still a "normal" family. I know it sounds weird, but that was one of the concerns we had when I was still pregnant. He is such a happy little guy, and he does absolutely everything that a baby with fully formed limbs does, but just in a different way. It's funny how quickly we forgot that he looks different. We will be at play group, and I will notice a new mom looking at him intently (all the other moms and kids absolutely adore and accept him) and I will think to myself "what's wrong? He's playing nice and his face is clean," and then I'll remember about his arms and hands and be like "OH. right."

Please feel free to PM me if you want to ask me any more questions, and I would really love to hear how everything turns out for you. Good luck on your upcoming labour!   

  

julessixer

thank you so much everyone for all of your encouragement and support. It has helped me a lot and given me some much needed strength. I have a c-section scheduled for June 17th, so I will keep you all posted and let you know how we are doing.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and I will let you know in a couple of weeks how my little man is doing!