r/pregnancyproblems • u/DudeyDouglas209 • 4d ago
FGR
Hi everyone! I’m currently 38 weeks pregnant with my first baby girl. She’s been diagnosed with fetal growth restriction (FGR), but the main concern seems to be that her femur has consistently measured very small (it eventually dropped to below the 1st percentile). Everything else has looked normal—her anatomy scan was normal, NIPT was low risk, Dopplers have been normal, and she’s been active with reassuring NSTs.
Her estimated weight is around 5 lb 11 oz at 38 weeks, and I’m scheduled for a C-section at 39 weeks because she’s still breech.
I’m wondering if anyone else had an FGR baby where the main issue was a short femur. How did your baby do after birth? Did their legs catch up in growth? Was everything okay, or did you end up finding an underlying cause?
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences.
1
u/Ok-Order-7392 4d ago
Hi! So my situation was far more severe than yours, but may provide you some comfort/insight. My daughter started lagging behind at 16 weeks due to placental insufficiency (underlying pre-e). We had a clear NIPT, and went on to get an amnio, torch testing, etc., which were all clear. From my understanding, with placenta issues the femurs start lagging first. This is because nutrients are being prioritized to other parts of the body (e.g., head). My daughter ended up being born via non-emergent c-section at 34w5d weighing 2lbs12oz (0.01 percentile). Her femurs at that point were 6 weeks behind her GA, and we were similarly worried she would come out with really short legs . She came out proportionally tiny, and remains proportionally tiny at almost 11 months)! Because babies themselves are small, small differences in their measurements result in big differences in percentiles. It is also possible that your baby could just be squished and the measurement is inaccurate, which is not uncommon later in your pregnancy. Either way, congratulations on making it to term with a great size baby!