A Third Ultrasound
Actually a sixth, as there were three in Memphis when Miss Ainsleigh was still embryonic. But 27 December we had the third ultrasound of her "fetal" period.
There are no pictures worth posting this time. We saw a new doctor (a partner of the woman we've seen before) and with him a new ultrasound tech. Neither of them was as personable as the pair we usually see. They were clearly not focused on or especially interested in producing quality pictures for us. Oh, well.
What they were focused on was, well finding a reason to order more ultrasounds. (This will sound less unfair in a moment.) And find one they did. The current generation of ultrasound imaging machine has a Doppler capability that alows it to see movement inside the uterus --- even inside the baby. In general, this capability is used to track blood flow in the placenta, cord, and baby. They used this in October and November to ensure that the blood flow transiting the torn placenta was adequate. They also use it to track blood flow through the heart valves.
At December's appointment they used this Doppler feature to scope out the blood flow into the baby through the umbilical arteries. There should be two of these, one runing along each side of baby's bladder. Unfortunately, Miss Ainsleigh has only one; try as he might, the good doctor could not find any evidence of blood flow through the right-side umbilical artery with his fancy Doppler ultrasound machine.
What this means isn't exactly clear. While we were there in his office, he said the principal concern was that the absence of one umbilical artery is "associated in about 1% of cases with Down's syndrome." Now, 1% doesn't seem like much of a signal to me; even assuming this effect is real, though, one assumes that the relevant 1% is massively concentrated among mothers and babies with other indications of the disease. None of these indicators are present (the doctor checked thoroughly), so this kind of seemed like a made-up concern to me.
The other big concern associated with the condition is that the total blood supply to the baby will be inadequate as she gets bigger; this may lead to low birth weight and all the attendant problems thereof. This of course is a real concern, and the doctor ordered another follow-up ultrasound at the beginning of February in order to track the baby's growth.
So we're going back in February. Having been less than completely satisfied with the more recent doctor/technician combo, we've scheduled the appointment witht he doctor we saw in October and November. At the very least, this should make for better pictures.
There are no pictures worth posting this time. We saw a new doctor (a partner of the woman we've seen before) and with him a new ultrasound tech. Neither of them was as personable as the pair we usually see. They were clearly not focused on or especially interested in producing quality pictures for us. Oh, well.
What they were focused on was, well finding a reason to order more ultrasounds. (This will sound less unfair in a moment.) And find one they did. The current generation of ultrasound imaging machine has a Doppler capability that alows it to see movement inside the uterus --- even inside the baby. In general, this capability is used to track blood flow in the placenta, cord, and baby. They used this in October and November to ensure that the blood flow transiting the torn placenta was adequate. They also use it to track blood flow through the heart valves.
At December's appointment they used this Doppler feature to scope out the blood flow into the baby through the umbilical arteries. There should be two of these, one runing along each side of baby's bladder. Unfortunately, Miss Ainsleigh has only one; try as he might, the good doctor could not find any evidence of blood flow through the right-side umbilical artery with his fancy Doppler ultrasound machine.
What this means isn't exactly clear. While we were there in his office, he said the principal concern was that the absence of one umbilical artery is "associated in about 1% of cases with Down's syndrome." Now, 1% doesn't seem like much of a signal to me; even assuming this effect is real, though, one assumes that the relevant 1% is massively concentrated among mothers and babies with other indications of the disease. None of these indicators are present (the doctor checked thoroughly), so this kind of seemed like a made-up concern to me.
The other big concern associated with the condition is that the total blood supply to the baby will be inadequate as she gets bigger; this may lead to low birth weight and all the attendant problems thereof. This of course is a real concern, and the doctor ordered another follow-up ultrasound at the beginning of February in order to track the baby's growth.
So we're going back in February. Having been less than completely satisfied with the more recent doctor/technician combo, we've scheduled the appointment witht he doctor we saw in October and November. At the very least, this should make for better pictures.
posted by Brian @ 7:56 PM
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