echogenic cardiac foci

anyone else have this show up on their baby's ultrasound? my baby has it...found it in an ultrasound in the 2nd trimester...for those who don't know, it's looks like a white spot on the ultrasound and is a weak marker for down's syndrome. we had the level 2 ultrasound soon after and it was still detected. all other "markers" were negative. we did not do the amniocentesis (sp?).

when we found out we were really sad thinking about the possibly difficult road ahead, but were/are hopeful that our baby will be "fine." several of my other friends had this show up on their daughters' ultrasound and it turned out to be nothing. i was able to put it out of my mind the last few months, but as i get closer to the due date (i'm at 35 weeks) i'm thinking about it more and more.

anyone have experience with this? want to share?

thanks.

I am not familiar with that marker.  What did your doctor say about that showing up on the U/S?  Did he/she suggest an amnio?  What is a level 2 u/s?  All of the ones I have had were the black and white ones-  I'm not familiar with the different types.  what week along were you when the marker was spotted?  Now that you are nearing the end of your pregnancy and heading towards delivery; there are a lot of emotions that come in to play.  Just take one day at a time-  what did the doc say about the chances of down's after the mark was found?  Pregnancy is so nerve-racking.

well, it showed up on the 1st US ohhh, around week 20 or so, and we had a variety of choices on how to proceed basically to gather more info and determine whether or not we wanted to continue with the pregnancy. we knew that we want our baby however she is, and so we didn't "need" to know more info in that sense, but we wanted to be able to have a little more info to prepare ourselves emotionally if necessary.

SO, the options were to do a more sophisticated US (which is also black and white, but just better technology so the image is more clear), do some bloodwork on me, and to do the amnio. neither the bloodwork nor the US are definitive in their answer, but the amnio is invasive and can cause a miscarriage. so the doc said if it were her she'd do the 2nd US just to have more info, and then go from there...so that's what we did. in the 2nd US they looked for the marker (which they found again) and they also looked for lots of other markers like the development of the limbs, the thickness of various tissues, the facial features, etc. the 2nd doc did not find anything more than the white spot, which in most babies is known to go away and not mean anything. the doc didn't find anything other than the spot....i'm younger than 35, and neither my husband or i have any genetic pblms in the family, so that makes me feel better. the 2nd doc said that in general the chance of having a baby with ds is 1/1000, and the presence of the marker moves that to 1/500 (if i remember correctly). the doc seemed pretty comfortable with the outcome of the 2nd US, but he couldn't say definitively (of course) whether our baby has ds or not.

so my husband was relieved b/c he sees the glass as half full, but i've had a harder time being calm about it. what helped was knowing that at least two of my friends' babies had the same thing and their daughters are fine. plus there are lots of articles out there criticising the use of US for this type of thing b/c the correlation b/w the marker and the genetic abnormality is pretty weak. but still, the docs all brought it up and freaked me out. i wish they had kept thier mouths shut.....but i can understand where they are coming from too...wanting to provide their patients w/the most info possible.

maybe i can figure out how to put that fear back in the box and tuck it away so i don't think about it. no reason to stress about something before there's anything to worry about. i'm not sure why its creeped out of the cave where i hid it so many weeks ago, but you're probably right,  the hormones and fears are really starting to come in to play.

thanks for listening (reading)....

you have so much going through your head now-  you need to talk it out-  sometimes that's the best way to really realize what you're feeling.  My sister-in-law had some type of marker; and her two year old son is perfect!!!  It is not uncommon to see marker's and if the doc didn't push the amnio and you weren't comfortable getting one; then that's fine.  I really believe that if there was an issue; there may have been a stronger urge to get one. 

You are going to have a beautiful baby; one that you will love and hold and cherish for the rest of your life.  You'll get through this stress just fine and soon you'll have this amazing child and new best freind!!!!

I have a similar story....kind of along the same lines.

I was four months pregnant when I had my first ultrasound, and the doctors found all sorts of problems. Mainly, the ventricles in the brain were enlarged (by their measurements) and they were convinced my son would be born with hydrocephalus (meaning water on the brain). I went every other week for ultrasounds so they could monitor the growth of his brain, and the closer I got to my due date, the worse the prognosis. I even had a fetal MRI done when I was 7 months pregnant. From all of this, they told me my son would most likely not look like a normal baby due to a severely enlarged head, he would not walk, talk, or see.

Talk about stress! I was constantly worried and wondering what I had done wrong from January until May 9th when my son was born.

When my son was born, they had a whole team of specialists ready to whisk him away to surgery.

As soon as he came out, it was obvious that the doctors had been wrong. My son is two and he can walk, talk and see. He does not have hydrocephalus. He is legally blind (he cannot see fine details at a distance of about four feet) but that is nothing compared to what the doctors thought they saw in the ultrasound.

I would try to not worry, and just pray that your baby is exactly how God wants him to be. I can sympathize with you, because I went through the emotional ups and downs that come with this kind of territory. I know it is hard not to worry...I worried until the day my son was born :) Just know that everything will be okay.