Large head circumference & small femur- down syndrome?

[Katie]

Hi,

I am 19 weeks pg today with my first bub and went for my 19 week scan. The sonographer mentioned at the end of the scan that the 'kidneys were prominent' and my dr would talk to me about it. After freaking out a little I googled and read posts on bellybelly whch indicated that whilst it is a soft marker for down syndrome, this problem usually resolves before birth and the baby is perfectly normal. My 12 week scan and bloods indicated an extremely low risk of down syndrome. So feeling releaved I then remembered noticing that bub's head circumference was measuring 19 w 6 d whilst the femur measurement was only 18 w 2 d. Had a giggle at this thinking bub takes after his/her dad who has a big head! Then I made the mistake of googling this and found that a shorter femur length is also a sign of downs so am really freaking out now. Just wondering if anyone's bub has had differing measurements and the outcome? Hopefully I am stressing for nothing.

Thanks in advance!

[~Stoked~]

Hi Katie...

We also found out by ultrasound that our baby had a short femur length (it was a week behind everything else) and were told by the Dr that he probably just had 'short' legs. We were freaking out a little bit (thinking we had a dwarf baby on our hands! Or at least a normal sized baby with dwarf legs!) They also said he was about a week and a half behind in growth..Anyway, fast forward a few months later, Archie was born at 8lb 15oz and 54cm long and his legs were perfectly normal length! In fact he is now measuring off the chart in length for his age and is the length of the average 6.5 month old at 3.5 months!
So in my experience, they can't always tell the exact size of babies (or lengths of bones!) in utero. Please don't stress yourself about it unneccesarily. And (so many people told me this when i was PG)..... STAY AWAY FROM GOOGLE!!! hahaha! I know it's hard but sometimes google causes more worry than good!

Goodluck, let us know how you go xx