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re: Experience with Ultrasound Findings?

Posted on 2/26/15 at 1:06 pm to
Posted by ashy larry
Marcy Projects
Member since Mar 2010
5568 posts
Posted on 2/26/15 at 1:06 pm to
quote:

They just call it a "soft" marker for genetic abnormalities which is what has been worrisome for us. They said the chances of anything being wrong is very very low as my wife is younger than 30 years old.

I appreciate you talking about it. Trying to put my mind at ease.


I could tell you not to worry, but I know it won't do any good. But there are 2 key things to keep in mind with ultrasounds:
1) prenatal scans are designed to cast a wide net which results in a lot of false positives. basically their goal is look for anything and everything so it can be addressed as soon as possible IF necessary. This results in tons of people being scared shitless for no reason at all. I understand the necessity of this, but it doesn't make it any easier.
2) This may not apply to your situation, but ultrasonographer error is very common. There isn't really any licensing requirement to be an ultrasound technician to my knowledge. so unless a doctor or a very experienced tech is performing the ultrasound, there are often 'operator errors'.

I learned the above information first hand. During my wife's first pregnancy they found a marker for a chromosomal disorder in our child at the 20 week ultrasound. The ultrasound was performed on a Friday, and we were told the results immediately. We couldn't see a specialist for a second opinion until Monday at the earliest. This was a very long, tough weekend.

On the following Monday the specialist and his experienced ultrasonographer both ruled out any issues within minutes. The ultrasonographer showed my wife and I how the young girl performing the ultrasound a few days before screwed up. Apparently it's not that uncommon.

Our screening wasn't the "Echogenic Intracardiac Foci", but something they looked for at the same time. The shitty thing about all of this is the way the numbers can scare you. With the marker that was supposedly found we could have been 10 times more likely to have a kid with downs. Well, if my chances based on my wife's age, health, etc were 1 in 5,000 before the ultrasound, our chances now 'increased' to 1 in 500. I'll take those odds any day. You'd probably be very content If someone came to you before the pregnancy and said you'll have a 499 in 500 chance of having a healthy baby. But when a pregnant woman hears "you may be ten times more likely to have a child with a chromosomal disorder", it doesn't go over well.

tl;dr - had a similar result to a different test. baby was born healthy.
Posted by HoustonTiger2008
Member since Feb 2015
631 posts
Posted on 2/26/15 at 1:12 pm to
I agree with everything you said. This was actually a level 2 ultrasound with a high risk doctor because of something completely different and unrelated the first doctor thought they MIGHT have seen. This doctor immediately ruled that out, but did point this out to us. It was the high risk dr that actually pointed it out to us, so I'm confident that she was right, but she did say multiple times that no other markers were found and that this, by itself, is a very very soft marker.

They told us without any of the previous testing, based on age alone, our risk was like 1/850 and that doubled the risk, so maybe like .25%. But that is without any other testing done. We could have been in the same 1/5,000 type boat that you guys were in and this would bring it down to 1/2500.

Logically, I know the odds are very much in our favor that our baby boy will be fine and healthy, it's just so difficult to tell yourself that emotionally though.
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