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cZa
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Dialated Kidneys
cZa
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My 20 week ultrasound showed our little boy has dialated kidneys. I am not sure what this means, what it could cause after he is born, or how serious this is. I am having a follow up ultrasound at 28 weeks and was wondering if anyone else experienced this. tia
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Re: Dialated Kidneys
Do you mean the ureters are dilated? They are the tubes that drain the urine from the kidneys to the bladder. I am an ultrasound tech and see it quite a bit. I think it can mean a lot of different things but also it can mean nothing. Did the tech wait for your baby to pee to see if it went away? I have scanned many babies after they are born and the dilated ureters have corrected themselves.
hth
My doctor said both kidneys were dialated. The tech did not tell me anything. I learned this at my regular visit following my ultrasound since the doctor was not at the ultrasound.
Did they say dilated renal pelvis? That means the ureter valves aren't completely open, I think. Usually babies outgrow it as their bodies get bigger. My DS had it in utero, too. It didn't resolve before he was born so we went to see a urologist. He had to go for u/s's twice and by 5 mos he's outgrown it.
I know it's scary, but it is good info to have. Years ago, if your DC didn't grow out of it they could have kidney infections and possibly kidney failure before anyone figured out what was going on. Now we know and can monitor it to make sure no damage is done. The worst case scenario is usually surgery when your DC is older.
GL!
Our dd has this too. The good news it that most babies seem to outgrow it, sometimes before they are even born, they will probably do ultrasounds every month or so until your baby arrives to check on the changes in dc's kidneys. That part of it is a nice treat, you get to see DC more often now than you would normally
Even when babies don't outgrow it before birth, they have a good chance of outgrowing it before their first birthday.
We also saw this on dd's 20 week ultrasound and it was still present at birth. The term they said to us, was "dialated renal pelvis" on the right side only. When dd was born she had to have another ultrasound which unfortunantly showed severe hydronephrosis on the right kidney and mild reflux on the left. The reflux she should outgrow by 1 year, she takes a small dose of antibiotics every day to prevent infection. She hates taking the medicine, but we just do it fast and then immediatly follow with her bottle and she calms right down. She has to have surgery when she is 1 year old to remove the right kidney though because of damage from the hydronephrosis. We see a pediatric urologist and she's had several ultrasounds and a couple of other tests, one called a VCUG to check the reflux and another called a Lasix Renal Scan to check her kidney function. Neither test was fun for me, it broke my heart, but dd slept through both tests, even the part involving a catheter and didn't even seem to notice! (so that was a relief)
Hang in there, I know how scary and heartbreaking it is to go to that 20 week scan and find something amiss. It's not what you were expecting and it's a hard thing to hear. But try to rest easy and keep in mind that the chances of your dc having something severe is really really low. Like 1 in 100,000 according to our urologist.
Like pp said, the abosolute worst case scenario is that some babies end up having surgery which is scary, but they've made huge advances in technique and anesthesia safety and all of that and our urologist said that dd will recover very quickly.
Hugs
If you do ever need to talk, feel free to email me at momma2michelle at yahoo dot com. I don't know everything about this condition, but I've learned alot in the past 9 months since we found out and my mom is also an ultrasound tech, so she's helped me understand some of the terminology.
Oh,also, I realize I didn't entirely answer your question.
What it can mean later in life is that they are more prone to kidney infections, and in my dd's case, high blood pressure because her kidney is so dilated.
That's the reason alot of dr's choose surgery.
Thanks so much for your response. I know that there are worse things that could happen but it sure is scary. We will see what happens at 28 weeks.
prayers for our babies.