What was your NT measurement? (Nuchal Translucency)

[Gemini85]

Hiya

I just measured at 2.1mm at 12 weeks and 4 days,
i dont really know what this means risk wise, so wondered if any of you have any i could compare with? xx

 

[Mindy_mini]

For my dd it was 1.51mm and for this baby it was 1.53. Both at 13+4.

Both came back low risk - dd at 1:1747 and this baby at 1:20?? (sorry can't remember the exact number)

Some places consider above 2.5mm to be abnormal whilst others dont worry til 3mm. 2.1 is normal.

 

[xAmiixLouisex]

From what I've read online.. NT measurement of up to 2mm is normal at about 11 weeks and up to 2.8mm by 13 weeks and six days. Mine was 1.4mm :]

 

[taterbean]

I don't have mine until next Monday. I think your risk is based on the measurement plus your blood test results, though. One of the sites I looked at said that measurements around 2mm for 11 weeks and 2.8mm for 13w6d are normal and that 9/10 of babies with measurements between 2.5mm and 3.5mm are normal. Even if you come back high risk, though, it doesn't mean that something will be wrong with your baby.

The NT scan just gives you a ratio of probability of a problem. For an accurate diagnosis, you'll need to get an amnio if you choose.

 

[Gemini85]

its really worrying me, everyone ive found seems to have a 1.something. im worried that im in the twos! Plus a little concerned about the "nasal bone" in my scan? doesnt seem that clear to me... :$ x

 

[Mindy_mini]

Nothing on my scan seems clear to me and I'm a part qualified mw!

We aren't meant to understand scans. Did thy say anything about he nasal bone? If not, assume it was normal and they aren't concerned.

Don't stress just wait for the results

 

[Gemini85]

yeah they didnt mention it, i was a little miffed as the sonographer spoke terrible english. he explained nothing, if it wasnt for the fact that im googles number 1 customer, i wouldnt have known WHAT i was looking at! haha! x

 

[Liesje]

its really worrying me, everyone ive found seems to have a 1.something. im worried that im in the twos! Plus a little concerned about the "nasal bone" in my scan? doesnt seem that clear to me... :$ x

A colleague of mine was told flat out her baby had DS... Guess what... They were wrong.

 

[kat2504]

Don't worry. The measurement on its own is meaningless. It has to be worked out along with the measurement for the rest of the baby too. They do some maths that includes the NT, the length of the baby, and something out of your blood test.
I expect yours will be totally fine. The measurement does not sound especially big. many people with smalller measurements might have had their scan a few days earlier, so the baby would still be smaller too.
I couldn't see a nasal bone in my scan picture either. It doesn't mean the sonographer didn't see it during the ultrasound. Just that it isn't on the picture you got. Scans are only 2D and it just takes a slice. The slice you got might not include the nose. The picture you get given is just for your enjoyment. You can't use it to diagnose anything about the baby so please try not to worry about that.

 

[BostonGal]

At my appointment they told me that anything over 3 mm increased risk. Below that, the results have to be combined with the blood test results to get a risk estimate. My measurement was 1.4 mm but I don't have the blood results back yet.

 

[Gemini85]

Thanks for your advice ladies, and i was shocked to see that a lady was told to expect DS and they were wrong!!!
Im one of those "prepare" types, lol, i have to know everything on demand, my mother said it started at the age of two with the exclamation of "wassis" and it never went away! haha! x

 

[Sunshine12]

its really worrying me, everyone ive found seems to have a 1.something. im worried that im in the twos! Plus a little concerned about the "nasal bone" in my scan? doesnt seem that clear to me... :$ x

Hi (again) hun,

Are you getting bloods done as well? They will tell you based on your scan results what your risk ratios are but if you get bloods done they will combine these results with your age and your scan info and give you a better indication of whether you are low or high risk based on ratios. Dont worry.

p.s They cant tell flat out if a baby has DS unless you have an amnio or CVS. xx

 

[Helenita]

its really worrying me, everyone ive found seems to have a 1.something. im worried that im in the twos! Plus a little concerned about the "nasal bone" in my scan? doesnt seem that clear to me... :$ x

Hi (again) hun,

Are you getting bloods done as well? They will tell you based on your scan results what your risk ratios are but if you get bloods done they will combine these results with your age and your scan info and give you a better indication of whether you are low or high risk based on ratios. Dont worry.

p.s They cant tell flat out if a baby has DS unless you have an amnio or CVS. xx

As I was researching the Internet on the subject of Nuchal Translucency, I have come across the forum discussing the same issue and read the answer of a pregnant woman who is also a Statistician which I am attaching below. She was replying to another lady who was worried about getting the high risk for the Down Syndrome (1:47) based on her combined NT/blood testing. I found her explanation interesting and wonder what other people think about it. It reflects on the section I highlighted in the quoted post...I am sorry for the long message.

...I'm answering you as both, as a statistician and as a mother. Statistician's voice: The way the ''nucal test'' is typically conducted in medical practices in the US these days is an unfortunate marriage between a relative reliable and a very unprecise indicator. I can not see how these two very different things can, even half-resonably, be combined into one likelyhood:
(A) The measurement of the nucal fold taken during an ultrasound. If the measurement is above a certain threshold (2.5 if I remember well), this is a semi-quantitative (but relatively reliable) indicator for Down syndrome.

(B) A measurement of the concentration of a hormones released in pregnancy, and some other data. It has been observed that the concentrations of this hormon develop slightly differently when the fetus has Down syndrome (or other chromosomal problems, or spina bifida). A deviation from the typical curve can, but does not have to, be caused by Down syndrome or one of the other diseases. Unfortunately, the evaluation of the results is extremly sensitive to the estimated time of conception. The latter is estimated by the date of last period, or by ultrasound. Both methods are not precise enough to ensure the interpretation is even half reasonable.

I would encourage doctors to report their findings separately. Every woman who chooses to do this test should be reported the measurement from (A). She could then choose by herself if she wants to put any confidence in part (B) or not. In particular, if she already has reasons to belief that the date of conception (the doctors will talk about ''due date'' for the birth, actually) was well estimated. For example, if her cycle lengths are not the ''normal'' 28 days, if she's not sure about her date of last period, or if the dates based on the day of last period and the date based on ultrasound differ. I actually talked to the statistician in charge of the Californian program for screening for genetical diseases. He said that something like three days off the correct date of conception can completely falsivy the results. Doctors and their assistents usually do not even know this, and go ahead to do a useless compution. The results they report to the women are probabilities of a precision that is misleading. I would like to see the standard errors for their computations. It would not be surprised to see: ''the probability your fetus has Down's is, most likely, some number between 1/10 and 1/300''. What are you making out of this information?

Mother's voice: Before I got pregant, I could do the math for likelyhoods describe above, but I had no idea in what context this information would land, and how it could work against what we all mean or claim to want, the health of mother and baby. Prenatal diagnostic is often very stressful for pregnant women, and the communication about the findings is often upsetting. Experiencing all these worries and anxiety is not good for mother and baby to be, I'm am sure it interferes with the mental and physical health of both. Not drastically, I don't want to make anyone panic here, but I belief we should make more effort to create a feeling of safety for pregnant women rather than reducing prenatal care to a battery of tests. I don't mean to drop the tests all together, but to be careful not to let them become the focus of your pregnancy. (Good preparation for raising a child, learning to take responsibility in not loosing your optimistic attitude towards your child when one particular thing is not working out as a childrearing book describes it, or as a pre-school teacher would like it to.) How can you relax and let the baby out in the world during birth, if you feel that is has to be ''perfect'' to be accepted by its fellow human beings? And even with 50 tests, there's not garanty. For example, with a chance of 1%, the child will become schizophrenic as a young adult. Nobody is able to test for that in the womb.

On the other hand, let's be frank, many women these days do not want to carry Down syndrome babies to term. For that, they need a certainty that science, at this point, can not deliver, except by more invasive methods such that amnio, which in turn has some not very small risks itself. On top of that, the amnio brings the result a lot later, an abortion at that point is a more traumatic and more invasive procedure than earlier on. There is no simple answer to this.

All these thoughts above are the result of me going through this kind of situation myself. I was and I am going back and forth regarding my attitude to abortion based on Down syndrome, both politically and personally. and regardless on which side I am it's getting easily very emotional, and seemingly incompatable. I did eventually drop an appointment for an amnio I had already made. I decided to trust the information from part (A) more than the one from part (B). I had to chase the doctor down the hallway to get him to tell me, in a grumpy tone, the actual measurement he took, rather than the highly questionable summaries of (A), (B), and a bunch of other data.

I do not know what I would have done if I had had other results in part (A). I would not have taken the risk of doing an amnio without begin more or less certain to terminate the pregnancy in case of Down syndrome, and the answer to this I didn't find yet. Just in those days, I met a women who did abord a child based on a diagnosis of Down sysndrome in an amnio. 9 years later, she was still traumatized. I walked into the hospital as a mother of two, I walked out as a mother of one, she said. She didn't regret her step, though, she added. However, she also didn't know what she would say if she had decided to carry her baby to term. I had a discussion with a genetic councelor.

It was a bit difficult to schedule with in my doctor's practice, but it was worth every minute. The first person who actually knew what these tests are all about, willing to answer questions of any sort, very nurturing, not biased in any way, very respectful, and truly considering the individual case. The one thing I can cleary recommend to you, is to go for this consulting, with your husband (or a friend), and give yourself time for decisions and comfort. Julia