Amnio?? Take Any Advice!

childcaremama · January 2016

Hello May Mom's! I'm a FTM due on June 4th but my doc won't let me go past 39 weeks which put us at May 28th at the latest, so I've been following along here on May Mom's. Yay 20 weeks today! As some of you may know, our daughter is perfect but the placenta is not allowing enough blood flow to her for her to be able to grow as she should. Most of the time they don't know why this happens so just label it Maternal Health Factors (basically my body is not doing what it should).

Sometimes (very rarely) this problem can be caused by the mom catching a virus (just feels like a cold) called cytomegalovirus. If mom gets it 40 percent of babies get it. 75 percent of babies with cmv are totally healthy. 15 percent have hearing loss or learning disabilities. 10 percent have very extreme impairments. The doctor wants me to get an amnio on Thursday.
With the amnio if she tests positive for cytomegalovirus they will give me shots to do that could possibly boost her immune system, thus lowering her risk for the sever birth defects. But the shots haven't been proven to have any effect in studies and we have no idea if I even had cytomegalovirus, let alone if it went to her. Of course I want to boost her chances anyway I can but there is so much going against her that I can't protect her from. The amnio has risk of causing my water to break which she wouldn't survive. I know the risk is small but it's the only thing I can protect her from. The doc says 1 in 400 amnio's cause a stillbirth due to preterm labor. I feel like that's a high number!? My doc says he's never lost a baby from an amnio. I just don't know how I'd ever live with myself if doing the amnio caused her to die. How to I take that risk? Everything else I can't control but this I can.

So I don't want to get the amnio but my husband does in case of the very small cmv virus to dump the shots.
I'll gladly Take Any Advice!!! Thank you!

TheThornBird · January 2016

Can you see another doctor and get a second opinion? I know for my own surgery, I had different doctors tell me way different things, so someone else may be able to give you more information.

AdorkablePixie · January 2016

I would never get an amnio. The risk of miscarriage is way too high. Especially if the shots aren't proven effective anyway! Could they give you the shots without getting an amino, just to be on the safe side? I just feel like the risks way outweigh the benefits with amnio. Can't they test you first, to see if you even had that virus? I feel like getting an amnio when the chance that she won't be healthy is on,y 15% isn't a good idea, especially since the risk of miscarriage is high. This is just my opinion though, I am no doctor. In the end this is your decision. Good luck with whatever you chose to do!

Merciel · January 2016

First I'd try to see if they could diagnose the CMV in you. If you don't have it, then the baby can't have it, so there's no need to proceed further along the decision tree.

If it turns out that you do have CMV, then you have a difficult personal choice to make. Based on the numbers you've provided, it sounds like the chances that the baby will be impaired are quite small (only 40% chance of transmission, and then a 75% chance that the baby will be unaffected even if there is transmission), and the shots are not proven to have any beneficial effect even in the low-probability event that the child would be impaired. On the other hand, the risk of adverse consequences from amnio is also very small.

So it looks like you'd be weighing a very small chance that something good might happen against a very small chance that something bad might happen, and in either case, the highest-probability outcome (by a lot) is that the end result is unaffected by whatever intervention you do or don't choose.

It sounds from your post like you've already decided you don't want an amnio, and the benefits of getting one don't sound tremendous in this situation, so tbh I don't see any reason to second-guess your preferences here. In your place, given those preferences, I'd probably (1) see if I could get a non-invasive CMV test for myself; (2) get a second doctor's opinion; and then (3) barring significant new information from #2, not do the amnio.

araecasey · January 2016

So a 4% chance that your little one would have severe impairments if you tested positive for CMV compared to .25% of losing your child if you consent to an amnio. I agree with @Merciel 's recs for how to move forward, but if you do test positive for CMV, I personally would much rather take the chance of my baby having severe impairments versus taking the chance of losing my baby. It's a really hard choice, one of quality of life vs. life at all, and it's really up to you which choice you feel peaceful with.

lalala2004 · January 2016

I'm also wondering if you can't just get the shots. It doesn't seem like boosting baby's immune system would be a bad thing to do, even if she doesn't have the virus!

childcaremama · January 2016

Thank you so much everyone! I'll definitely be begging for the shots without the amnio. At this point I can't justify the amnio risk. Praying for growth at our ultrasound on Thursday.

AdorkablePixie · January 2016

Let us know how it all turns out!!

jenashawn · January 2016

I'm with you. I'd ask about the possibility of getting the shots without the amnio. Hopefully they'll just let you do that. It might not be a bad idea to get a 2nd opinion anyway, since it sounds like your doc is pushing for the amnio.

nbgmom · January 2016

Can't they test your blood for CMV? I agree you should try to do least invasive to see if there's even a chance she has it. For me, an amnio is not worth the risk, but many women certainly do get them and have no trouble. Good luck!

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