When your child was in your womb during your early pregnancy did the sonograms reveal a dark spot in your childs heart?

No – I didn’t even have that although my kids were born 20 years ago so the equipment may have been less sophisticated.

I had a test where they could see the blood flow into and away from the heart, it was a sonogram but it was a detailed one.

My advice to you is to try not to worry too much. In general, sonograms are so vague and blurry. When I went for a certain series of tests, I spent time with one technician who told me all good things. Then I went and spent time with a doctor in the same practice, who was so serious and scary, and left me feeling worried (unnecessarily).

There is so much that can be done with medical technology nowadays. I knew a couple that had a baby born about 4 years ago and his heart valves were reversed. He had surgery at just a few weeks old and he’s fine to this day.

I’m not sure what a dark spot means.

I would specifically ask what the spot can mean, and how often your doctor observes that type of spot and the baby is born normal. I would also take the sonogram results to another doctor to ask them also. One who is ok with recommending abortion in cases of genetic abnormalities. If you are the type of person who would want to abort if something is very wrong, then I think you should satisfy any questions you have. If you would never abort then no real need to pursue more consult I guess. I am not trying to alarm you, I have absolutely no idea what the dark spot means or doesn’t mean, but I think not worrying is probably impossible, and probably worrying enough to get more answers is worthwhile. I recommend asking the doctor their views on abortion before the appointment, because if you get a doctor who is fundamentally against abortion, I think you risk not being told the whole truth. I hate to say that, but we see pharmacists who don’t want to fill scripts for the pill, and Catholic hospitals will not do abortions, or tie tubes, and rape victims not being told about or given morning after pill in the ER. I believe it to be a minority of medical professionals, but some decide for the patient. Even if you would never abort, you want a doctor who is ok with the idea, to make sure you get all your answers in my opinion.

Have you had a 4D sonogram? Maybe that will show more information? I don’t know a lot about it, but it shows more detail, and definitely not all doctors have the machine.

Also, if there is some sort of defect you might need an expert in neonatal cardiology, or whatever specialty handles that?

Having said all that scary stuff, a regular ultrasound is fairly fuzzy, it could be a blip on the screen maybe?

I sent this to someone who works in women’s health. She is either an NP or RN, I can’t remember which. I have not seen her around much, I hope she logs on.

Did they recommend amnio? I just read a little online, and it said one marker or spot is usually nothing, and it only very slightly increases the chance of a chromosonal abnormality. I have not read about prenatal things in a long time, but back when I was more up on these things, genetic abnormalities could only be detected by CVS and amnio. There were blood tests that might indicated a possible problem, but it was not a diagnosis. Maybe it is different now, and they have more sophisttcated blood tests.

Hello, I’m the jelly @JLeslie messaged. I currently work as an OB/GYN nurse practitioner, and previously spent nearly 30 years as a Certified Nurse Midwife, delivering more than a thousand babies.

I’m thinking you might be talking about an echogenic focus? It shows up on ultrasound as an area that is brighter than the surrounding tissue because it bounces the sound waves differently. There have been some studies that suggest an increased risk of Down’s syndrome in babies who have an echogenic focus, although most babies with this ultrasound variation are perfectly normal.

I did a quick google search, and found a webpage from Kaiser Permanente in California that fills in the details on echogenic cardiac focus
http://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/Images/GEN_US%20EIF%20handout_tcm63-9941.pdf

I hope this helps. Modern ultrasound gives us so much information, sometimes more than we know what to do with!

Thanks @MagsRags.

@JLeslie: I think even thinking about abortion or talking about it is jumping way ahead of the game.

@whitetigress: Please post an update, if you wish, to let us know the outcome. I’ sure I speak for the entire collective in wishing you Best of luck and health to you and your baby.

JCA
The Update Lady

@jca I think it is jumping ahead, but she is in a time crunch if she wants to consider it. Mostly I was dwelling on making sure the doctor would view it as an option in general for any patient carrying a genetically abnormal fetus. It seems like there is a very very good chance the baby is absolutely perfect, so I am not trying to cast a lot of doubt on her pregnancy, but again, stalling to get all the answers will mean she will run out of time to make a decision if she prefers to, I think states vary between 24 and 28 weeks for viability right now.

From reading @whitetigress ‘s profile, I get the sense that ending the pregnancy would not be a choice she would consider even in very dire circumstances. And if I’m right about this being an echogenic focus, no knowledgable pregnancy care provider would suggest it.

Back when the early research making the statistical connection with Down’s first came out, we would usually schedule a followup ultrasound later in the pregnancy to see if the focus had disappeared – if not, we alerted the pediatricians at the time of birth just so they would have an extra level of awareness. Not one of those babies ever had a problem. After a few years, with additional research, we felt comfortable telling parents it was almost always a variation of normal and didn’t do repeat testing just for echogenic focus unless the parents strongly requested it.

@MagsRags That was actually one of my questions in my first answer, how often when this is seen does the baby turn out perfectly normal, so if your guess is right about what it is, then it sounds like you have answered that particular question I threw out there.

Where I live I would not trust a doctor to suggest any alternatives unless I had specifically talked to them about their views regarding troubled pregnancies. I have had 5 pregnancies, miscarriages and ectopic, and I would be a little nervous to be pregnant where I live now. My hospital of choice is a Catholic Hospital, but look at what happened several months ago, a nun was excommunicated for helping a women, she was a mother of three I think, terminate a pregnancy because her life was in danger. My MIL was denied a hysterectomy by her Catholic doctor when she was bleeding constantly, because she was young and still could have more children. Makes me nervous for medical information to be kept from a patient, or for me not to be able to get the medical care I need or want.

@whitetigress I think @MagsRags is talking about the right thing by the sound of things. Did your doctor mention the possibility of doing a fetal echocardiogram? It’s where they can do an echocardiagram on the baby while still in utero. That will show them if your baby’s heart is functioning normally (at this point) or not and give them an idea of what (if any) effect this spot is having so far. If your doctor did not mention it, I would ask them for one. From my experience, most doctors want to wait until 23 weeks or beyond to do the fetal echo. I had to have a fetal echo done with my last pregnancy because there was an abnormal blood flow found at a 12 week scan. It’s just like the anatomy scan usually done around 20 weeks, just with a focus on the baby’s heart.

I could answer some of these question of I knew what a dark spot on the heart was. That’s not a medical diagnosis. If someone could help me out here I could check my sources.

@whitetigress Please let us know everything is ok. As @jca stated so well, I’m sure everyone here will be thinking about you, and wishes you everything good with your pregnancy and baby.

@JLeslie The account has been deleted.

Yes I noticed @whitetigress deleted his account last night. I hope he is fine and his baby is well too.

I hope so also.