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Hello everyone,
My daughter was diagnosed with an echogenic foci on her heart in the 12th week. I am 37 years old. My ATP bloodwork plus measurements gave me a chance of 1:1500. With the foci it lowered to 1:280. I opted out of amnio. Words cannot describe how stressed I became. I was so distraught I almosted refused for my friends to give me a baby shower. I had preterm labor for several weeks and delivered a week early because of my stupid stress!!! And YES---my little girl was delivered completely normal. She is 3 months old and all tests reveal no heart defects and the bright spot is gone. THis my advice ladies---Ask your doctor how many times has he seen a baby with normal bloodwork and normal trans nuch. measurements with an echogenic foci that resulted in down syndrome. My high risk OB doctor said he has seen it once in 13 years. He said it was a teenager who waited too long for the nucal trans. test to be accurate. I understand the fluid behind the neck drains after a certain time frame (is it 16 weeks?) He also said the baby had slow growth, so he had other indicators. He is confident he would have detected down syndrome had she made all of her appointments. He said he sees echogenic heart foci 10-15 times a week (he has a busy office too). After hearing this infomation, I was able to get through the rest of my pregnancy. I still thought about the spot, but the odds were highly in my favor. The nurse also said it is very rare to have a false negative AFP test unless the doctors measurements are wrong of the actual gestation age. The test is 90-95% accurate and even higher if you and your doctor have a good idea of when you became pregnant. Some people get a false positive, like my sister, because the doctor thought she was further along than she was (Yes, my nephew is also normal). I wish I could reach out and hug every one of you. Please don't go into preterm labor because of stress. I hope some of you can sleep easy after hearing this. GOD bless

I normaly post under the name lydiaajhammond but, I am attempting to post a message from the hospital using my blackberry! I couldn't wait until I got home to post! I had matthew ryan today 8lbs 1oz & 20 in, he is absolutely perfect & no DS!! I will post in detail when we get home! Thank you all so much!

Hello Lydia, CONGRATURLATIONS!!!!!!!!!
We are all so happy for you, with tears running down, you made it! with a perfect baby! thankyou so much for the update!

Congratulations lydia. In our heart we knew u will be fine and have a beautiful baby.

Congrats Lydia! I am so happy for you. That is great news. I am scheduled for a C-section Oct 23, although I do not know if I will make it that long, I am about to pop. I hope to have a great outcome also. I will let everyone know.

Lydia: I have been checking daily to hear your news! Congratulations, I am filled with such happiness for you and your family!

Thank you so much everyone~each of u r so greatly appreciated!I wish I could properly express my heartfelt gratitude to all of u! This has been so very difficult!after his birth Noone mentioned the spot til I asked the pediatrician about it, he suggested that I have a echocardiogram before we go home just as a precaution! The tech just finished & I asked her did his heart look ok! She said she doesn't read them but she saw nothing abnormal!she said she didn't understand why they ordered the echocardiogram just because of the small calcium dep! She said it is most likely a precautionary measure! Now I am waiting for the ped to come tell me what they found! I am a little nervous & worried about this now! I hope there is nothing major wrong with his heart! God bless u all!

Hi everyone - I posted back in June. I was pregnant with twins and one twin had a dilated kidney and the foci on his heart.... 2 Down's markers. Eventually both kidneys were dilated. We opted for amnio, even after the good results we were scared to death. I never was able to enjoy my pregnancy!
Well, I had the twins this past Tuesday, 10/9, and they are perfect. Neither the spot, nor the kidneys are an issue!!
This thread kept me sane!! I have loved coming here and reading everyone's posts!! I hope I can help some of you Moms-to-be enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!

Congraturlations!! Thank you, I was having a bad morning of worry, and of course came here for comfort and there was your post, Thank you, I hate this waiting game!
Lydia How is your little one?

hi girls,

i posted on this forum few days back after learning that my baby has a spot on his heart . i was absolutely devastated, did lot of research online but I found a lot of peace after reading posting on this forum. however i underwent an amnio just to be sure about everything as i am a worrier by nature. my amnio results have come today and everythg is absolutely normal. Now i think i unnecessarily worried a lot about something which is very rare. but i guess mothers are like that and this is my first baby. my best wishes to all of you. god bless u all.

Hello, for 5 months I have read all these posts to reassure myself that my baby was going to be healthy and "normal" . I registered today just so I could come and post my good news as well to help all of you who are struggeling with this same issue. My baby had multiple spots on both sides of her heart which is the rarest kind of foci. That was her only soft marker but once I was told about the risk I worried myself sick about it. I did get to have more ultrasounds and my quad screen results were 1 in 2034 but I still could not get past the worry. Her spots never went a way. On Sept. 26th she was born perfectly healthy, other than too much gas! We call her Frankie because she sounds like Frankenstein with all the grunting! Please do your best to put it in God's hands there is nothing worry will do except make you not enjoy your pregnancy. I know from experience that that is easier said than done but I promise you all your babies will be fine. God bless you all.

Hi there, These are great stories about the spots on the heart..so encouraging!! Thats wonderful. I posted back on Sept 18th about my IPS serum screen coming back at 1/46 for Downs. My scans have revealed no markers...any positive stories to share with me...I am so struggling. xoxo

I want to start by saying that your odds of something going wrong are overwhelmingly small. I had the quad screen for DS at 12 weeks with the nuchal translucency test along with nasal bone detection and the blood test. She has a nasal bone, her nuchal translucency is in normal range and the blood test came back normal. They gave us a 1 in 10,300 chance of DS. We found out she had two echogenic foci in her heart around the 5 month mark, but since our tests all came back negative the doctor didn’t suggest an amnio. My sweet baby girl was born with Down syndrome 4 months later to our total shock and disbelief. My intention here isn’t to scare anyone but unfortunately the tests are not fool proof. It is my advice for anyone who is even slightly concerned to just get an amnio, I know there is a chance of miscarriage but it’s important to consider the fact that the seemingly impossible can happen. I wish someone had given me this advice so I would have been prepared. By now I’m normalized and have adjusted, but knowing during the pregnancy would have helped me in so many ways. I adore my sweet baby girl and she has the most adorable little face you have ever seen. But the dark shadow I felt after she was born could have been avoided had I known.

hi all,
i completely agree with storie. Although only risk factor i had was a foci on heart I went for amnio just to make sure everythg is alright. Studies says that amnio has 1 in 200 chances of a miscarriage but those studies were done when amnio was not done under ultrasound guidance . my doctor told me with present equipment and expertise that risk is about 1in 800 at my hospital. so i took the risk. Although i knew in my heart that there was nothing wrong with my baby i got it done and beleive me or not i am quite releived after getting results negative. i dont want to sound negative but i wud also like to mention that i read a similar posting as storie's on another forum and that lady also had 1 or 2 marker postive but amnio came positive. But in the end its upto individual for what they want.

First of all, I still read these posts after delivering a healthy baby girl in June. I hate when people write "I dont mean to scare anyone but.." Of course you do! Or you wouldnt be writing it! So Storie, I'm very sorry that you were the extreme rarity who's baby was born w DS but you dont have to terrify everyone into getting the amnio! I want you to know that you just made all these poor women even more scared especially thoses who read theses posts every day for reassurance who are already passed the point of amnio. If I would have read this while I was awaiting the birth of my baby, I would have lost all hope. The fact that you obviously search for this thread just to inform people about your EXTREMELY rare occurance makes me angry! Could you have just spared all these poor women the agony and not written anything? Every doctor I talked to said that in 25 years there has never been a baby born with DS with only that marker, so please dont worry everyone! Its unfortunate that people can be selfish and ruin your pregnancies even more. All your babies will be perfect, just like my little angel was:)

Thank you so much for your post, iam one who reads this forum everyday for comfort and since i read Stories blog im feeling so emotionally drained and overwhelmed just like the first time i was told about this focas by the DR. I am aware that there is a chance for DS and now you have made it oh so very real again!! I know a couple who did the amninio it came out positive for DS and there baby was fine. So i thankyou to the post above because you have given me the fight to keep going again and making me realise Stories blog was a very rare story.