Umbiliacal cord flow - midwife freaked me out today!

[Cattia]

So I went for my 40 week appointment. My MW is away so I saw someone different. She gave me a sweep, said I am not dilated and my cervix is still quite long which didn't surprise me much. I am still measuring small, which I knew would be the case as I have been all along. At my last growth scan I was told they wouldn't scan me again as the growth is completely normal.

So she looked at my scan report from two weeks ago and said that she noticed the PI flow to the umbiliacal cord has gone down since my last scan at 33 weeks. It was at 1.2, then it went down to 0.8. It's still just below the middle line on the chart. She said she had no idea what it meant and didn't know whether it was anything to worry about! She then sent me on my way.

I then rang the day unit and a midwife I was on the phone to looked at my scan report on the computer. She said she wasn't sure, but she though it was a good thing as the PI is a resistance measure and the lower it is the less resistance there is? She was going to get a doctor to look at it and call me back but nobody has done.

Does anyone know anything about this? I'm assuming if it was anything serious then whoever reviewed my scan at the hospital would have picked it up, but she's got me worrying now. She was dreadful actually, gave me no real information, just made random throwaway comments and didn't really tell me anything.

She also told me to be super careful about monitoring movements and to go in as soon as there are any changes. I know this already, just the way she said it made me feel really worried.

 

[kajastarlight]

I don't know at all I tried to look through some medical texts real quick to see if I could find the answer and could not. (I am not a doctor at all, just have access to some medical texts for billing purposes) I hope they put your mind at ease soon!

 

[Rainbow82]

It's just below the 50th percentile. It is supposed to decrease as you go through pregnancy. They won't worry unless it was below approx. 0.55 which is the 5th percentile. Try not to worry, your midwives were unprofessional for not being able to reassure you.

 

[Cattia]

Thank you I trawled google myself earlier and with my little medical knowledge, what I read suggested it didn't seem to be a problem. I read one thing that said as it's better if it's lower, then I read another post about someone having a still birth at 40 weeks because of blood flow issues so I decided to stop googling at that point! The midwife I spoke to on the phone gave me the name of a consultant and said I could call her so I might do that tomorrow.

 

[dom85]

I've no idea what it is either but I know at my scan they kept measuring it over and over because they kept getting low readings but baby was playing with it and squeezing it so they had to keep trying. Once they measured a bit that he wasn't playing with it was fine though.

I agree with PP though, they should have tried to reassure you better and I'm sire if there was anything wrong the sonographer would have flagged it.

 

[Cattia]

The hospital just rang me back. They had a doctor look at it and he said it is meant to decrease, it's only if it goes up that there's a problem as it means increased resistance. I wish the stupid midwife wouldn't just speculate about something she didn't know anything about! Anyway I feel better now, thanks for the advice

 

[tulip1975]

Shouldn't she know? I know she's not a doctor, but this what she does for a living. Also - so unprofessional to muse out loud about a test/measurement that she doesn't understand.

 

[Cattia]

Shouldn't she know? I know she's not a doctor, but this what she does for a living. Also - so unprofessional to muse out loud about a test/measurement that she doesn't understand.

Absolutely my feelings, it's actually made me nervous about going to the birth centre as it's entirely run by midwives and it made me wonder what if they're all like that? She simply didn't seem to have a clue what she was doing and I think it was totally unprofessional of her to just say that there could be a problem when she a) didn't know and b) wasn't prepared to follow it up or do anything about it!