PB, how scary! I had a similar hospital experience when I started having PTL at 28 weeks with my last pregnancy. The good thing is that you''re 34 weeks (yay!), much further along than I was so if baby makes an early appearance it''ll be okay! Also the steroids shots are good so your little one''s lung develops faster and the antibiotics will clear up an infection if that''s what you have, which can bring on early labor contractions. Hopefully things settle down so you can keeping baking your LO for another few weeks! Were you able to feel the contractions? If you weren''t and want to monitor them, lay down and put your finger on the side of your belly. When you have a contraction you''ll be able to feel the tightening. Take an easy and take good care of yourself!
jas, that''s such WONDERFUL news! I hope your cousin has a smooth pregnancy!Date: 4/1/2010 12:10:39 PM
Author: Jas12
I just checked my email on lunch hour at work (good thing not too many students are in the classroom) and started crying b/c i found out my cousin, who has gone thru 3 rounds of IVF and many other fertility treatments that failed (including loosing triplets at 12 weeks last year), just had an ultrasound and got a good strong HB on one fetusI am so happy for them!!!!! happier than when i found out about either of my pregnancies -ha
I can''t tell anyone IRL, so i had to share over PS
I was not so blown away by the pics in the NT test... it was the 20 week scan that made me a happy camper!Date: 3/31/2010 11:46:32 AM
Author: cara
As for the ''what to do'' if one twin is affected by something, some people would just prefer to know if they are having a special needs child ahead of time even if they would do nothing. But also twin pregnancies are riskier than singletons and selective reduction is an option some people would consider under some circumstances if it gave a better chance of a survival for any of them, ie. if the unhealthy twin had a fatal issue and might induce early labor or something. I don''t think it is ''very risky'' for the unaffected twin - the procedure is more often used on higher order multiples but is ethically permitted for twin to singleton reductions, so it is probably less risky than a twin pregnancy. But enough with horrible rare possibilities.Date: 3/31/2010 1:48:27 AM
Author: dreamer_d
Blushing You may have already thought of this, but since you are having twins you may or may not even want to bother with the NT scan. Usually it is a test that when used in conjunction with blood tests gives an estimate of the odds of certain birth defects. It has a relatively high false positive rate and amnio is usually recommended afterwards if a positive is detected. Anyways, most of the time, unless you would terminate based on the results, many women will choose not to do it. With twins, I would think the risk of amnio would be higher, and thus not preferrable, and also the option of termination would be null and void if only one baby was affected (or at least very risky for the uaffected twin). And I seem to recall Neatfreak saying the measurements are inaccurate for twins because it is hard to get both of them in the right position etc. Anyways, it is not a reqired test so you can look into it before you decide to even do it. BTW, I am not trying to be pro or anti the test, it is a personal decision, but I just think being pg with twins adds a layer of complication to the decision that you do not have with a single. Like every other aspect of pregnancy it seems
I imagine you could still have the scan, but what the results will mean for you is a while other issue.
I think Mandy had an NT with her twins and they did come up with adjusted numbers for her boys. Presumably they got their own neck measurements but had to share her blood test numbersso its probably not as accurate as for singletons but still has some value if they can get the neck measurements.
Anyway, the *real* reason to get the NT is the pictures! Did I mention I love the pictures? OK, ok, if you are a worrier and it would not be healthy for you or the babies to go through secondary screening, which is understandably stressful, or you don''t want any screening tests done, maybe the pictures are not worth itOr if you are a strange one and don''t like little fetus pics.
When they are using the NT scan + blood test as a screening test to refer for further testing, they can set a very lax cutoff value where most women they refer are actually false positives. My friend that was referred for further testing had 1:50 odds of something being bad. That means for women with her numbers, 98% would be false positives and 2% would be true positives that actually had some thing wrong with their fetus. The advantage of doing this is that you catch more women with affected fetuses but only marginally bad numbers.Date: 4/1/2010 8:20:06 PM
Author: dreamer_d
I was not so blown away by the pics in the NT test... it was the 20 week scan that made me a happy camper!Date: 3/31/2010 11:46:32 AM
Author: cara
As for the ''what to do'' if one twin is affected by something, some people would just prefer to know if they are having a special needs child ahead of time even if they would do nothing. But also twin pregnancies are riskier than singletons and selective reduction is an option some people would consider under some circumstances if it gave a better chance of a survival for any of them, ie. if the unhealthy twin had a fatal issue and might induce early labor or something. I don''t think it is ''very risky'' for the unaffected twin - the procedure is more often used on higher order multiples but is ethically permitted for twin to singleton reductions, so it is probably less risky than a twin pregnancy. But enough with horrible rare possibilities.Date: 3/31/2010 1:48:27 AM
Author: dreamer_d
Blushing You may have already thought of this, but since you are having twins you may or may not even want to bother with the NT scan. Usually it is a test that when used in conjunction with blood tests gives an estimate of the odds of certain birth defects. It has a relatively high false positive rate and amnio is usually recommended afterwards if a positive is detected. Anyways, most of the time, unless you would terminate based on the results, many women will choose not to do it. With twins, I would think the risk of amnio would be higher, and thus not preferrable, and also the option of termination would be null and void if only one baby was affected (or at least very risky for the uaffected twin). And I seem to recall Neatfreak saying the measurements are inaccurate for twins because it is hard to get both of them in the right position etc. Anyways, it is not a reqired test so you can look into it before you decide to even do it. BTW, I am not trying to be pro or anti the test, it is a personal decision, but I just think being pg with twins adds a layer of complication to the decision that you do not have with a single. Like every other aspect of pregnancy it seemsI imagine you could still have the scan, but what the results will mean for you is a while other issue.
I think Mandy had an NT with her twins and they did come up with adjusted numbers for her boys. Presumably they got their own neck measurements but had to share her blood test numbersso its probably not as accurate as for singletons but still has some value if they can get the neck measurements.
Anyway, the *real* reason to get the NT is the pictures! Did I mention I love the pictures? OK, ok, if you are a worrier and it would not be healthy for you or the babies to go through secondary screening, which is understandably stressful, or you don''t want any screening tests done, maybe the pictures are not worth itOr if you are a strange one and don''t like little fetus pics.
Blushing My concern for moms who plan to do the NT screening but have no plans to do the amnio if the results are off is that there is such a high false positive rate -- Icannot recall the exact numbers, but of women who get a positive result on the screens, the vast vast vast majority have healthy babies. So getting a positive result is not *really* knowing, if you get me, and could cause undue worry and stress -- most likely would cause undue worry and stress, because most likely it was incorrect, but without amnio you would never know. But obviously you have thought about this and talked to your docs so I wish you the best! I am very sure that your results will be a-okay. Look forward to the Jelly bean pics.
note I am not against the tests, I had them. I just think the false positive rate is too high for them to be informative on their own without plans to follow through with amnio in the event of negative results.
All very interesting Cara! I am only familiar with its use as a screening tool in Canada and had not heard of it being used as a diagnostic tool. Here, the triple screen is pretty automatic as far as I know. And the highlighted is why I personally feel one should only really bother with the testing *if* they would change their pregnancy plans based on the results. This was actually the advice our midwifery practice went by, because the odds of uneccesary stress are so much greater than the odds of warranted worry, and if you would not abort, then the negatives of testing outweight the positives.Date: 4/1/2010 11:15:52 PM
Author: cara
When they are using the NT scan + blood test as a screening test to refer for further testing, they can set a very lax cutoff value where most women they refer are actually false positives. My friend that was referred for further testing had 1:50 odds of something being bad. That means for women with her numbers, 98% would be false positives and 2% would be true positives that actually had some thing wrong with their fetus. The advantage of doing this is that you catch more women with affected fetuses but only marginally bad numbers.
BUT when they use NT + blood test as a detection tool (ie. saying your baby probably has X rather than just saying you have a risk of X and should get further testing) they set a much stricter standard for saying someone is positive. Just from loosely looking at the literature, it seems the standard is to set the cutoff value wherever you need to get a false positive rate of 5% - not definitive by any means, but being 95% sure of something is a whole lot different than a 2% chance. Of course, using this stricter standard, more women will be false negatives, meaning their fetus has an abnormality but the test did not detect it. But its a tradeoff made to get the false positive rate acceptably low when using the test for detection not screening.
But either way, I get your point about thinking about what you will do with the results ahead of time. Even if you are willing to get the amnio in can be a roller-coaster ride waiting and worrying. I kind of blithely assumed I would get the amnio if needed, but when I talked to my friend who ended up walking that road I realized what a treacherous ride that would have been! Not the amnio itself necessarily, but the referral and worrying.
And good to know I have something to look forward to at the 19 weeker, apart from the ever popular gender detection
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