Almost 40 weeks, can go to 41

Pologirl wrote:

The most recent NIH conference actually had some discussion of markers
that could be used (at 11 weeks) to catch the vast majority of IUGR --
some 80%, IIRC. Not that this is any help, to you. :-)

The devil is in the details. How did they define IUGR?

Going off recall of the slides (the paper is yet unpublished, but will
be out shortly), it was 10% with asymmetric growth.

Tell me more. What conference? Which institute within NIH (there are
so many!)?

NICHD.

It doesn't go quite far enough, though, unless you dig for it. The
latest thinking makes an important distinction not only between low
birth weight (LBW) and small for gestational age (SGA), but between SGA
and IUGR (intrauterine growth restricted / retarded).

None of it goes quite as far as it should. IMNSHO, all of these
diseases are the result of the fact that our reprductive and
immunological genes are varying incredibly rapidly in an attempt to get
the head through the pelvis. (Look at the involvement of NK cells in
normal placentation...)

I expect all of these are adaptations to that basic problem. SGA
babies will be ones with an adaptation conducive to delivery but
possibly not to neonatal survival in all cases; IUGR babies will be
ones where the mother's immune system failed to cooperate with the
placenta possibly because the baby was genetically on track to grow too
big to fit out. Turns out in IUGR, preterm labor, and PE we've got
elevated levels of various angiogenic proteins produced by the
placenta, and the ratio of those proteins at early gestational ages is
relevant to which disease will show up downstream.

Obviously we are going to need serious genetic studies by phenotype to
get this sorted. But we have the infrastructure to do that now.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling

Pologirl wrote:
I'm still pregnant. Imagine that!
snip
Monkey Boy, now 2.5, has been making tremendous progress in potty
training. He is such a big boy!

Woohoo for full term *and* potty training!! Good labor vibes...

Em
mama to Micah, 11/14/04

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...
I've been looking for an update from you! 40 weeks- fabulous! Maybe
you'll have this lil' babe on Grant's 1st birthday-Friday the 29th.

we had this discussion last year! my birthday is 5th October and wasn't
that
the date Grant came home from hospital?

We did have lots of discussion last year. Yes, the 5th is the date we
brought him home.
Happy birthday coming up soon!

arrggh, it's moving week now, so I'm not going to get news, I'll probably
be
offline from lunch time tomorrow til Tuesday at the earliest, when I'll
have
to go to a Starbucks or something to get access!

Best wishes moving. I hope it goes smoothly for you.


--
Joy

Rose 1-99
Iris 2-01
Spencer 3-03
Grant 9-05 www.caringbridge.org/visit/grantphilip

I expect all of these are adaptations to that basic problem. SGA
babies will be ones with an adaptation conducive to delivery but
possibly not to neonatal survival in all cases; IUGR babies will be
ones where the mother's immune system failed to cooperate with the
placenta possibly because the baby was genetically on track to grow too
big to fit out.

That's interesting, my first was probably IUGR, but I was bigger with him
until 32 weeks than I was with my 2nd, a scan at 32 weeks estimated his
likely birthweight as 9lb, so not excessively big, but potentially too big
for me, he then barely grew from that point and was born at 5lb13oz,
estimated weight at 32 weeks was close to 5lb. To me that would seem it was
quite severe IUGR as he dropped at least 50 centile points, but it's not
considered to be IUGR by many people as his actual birth weight was above
10th centile, which means officially I wasn't expected to get any extra
monitoring in future pregnancies, which actually meant I got more consistent
care from one midwife rather than alternating between her and a doc, which
meant she got to feel the baby each week and feel that things were
progressing fine, though fundal height was wonky, I guess I'd want similar
in future, though having had one normal growth 3rd trimester and one
abnormal, the difference was blindingly obvious.

Cheers

Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:

To me that would seem it was
quite severe IUGR as he dropped at least 50 centile points, but it's not
considered to be IUGR by many people as his actual birth weight was above
10th centile...

Yeah, they're still monkeying around with the IUGR definition. I
looked up the slides and it looks like the definition was 50% with
asymmetric growth; they've realized that asymmetric growth is a bigger
indicator than SGA.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling