17 weeks with marginal placenta previa????

[stephanieginter]

I had an US last week in which i was informed we were having a healthy baby girl, and that i also had marginal placenta previa. This is our third child, and sadly i had no clue what this condition even was...my Dr gave me NO information what-so-ever so i started with the google-ing..greattttt

Now im just trying to find out what my odds are of having it "move" into a better position or even into a worse position. What are the odds that i will begin bleeding at some time? (i have yet to even spot at all)....i would feel a lot more comfortable if i just knew some statistics on this!!! Thanks a bunch for ANY help!!

[MaerynPearl]

if it is not centered over the cervix (which marginal def. is not) the chances of it moving out of that position before it becomes a problem is something like 99.9%

It is not likely to move further down at all.

I had mine found at 21 weeks and at 27 weeks when I went in due to bleeding they found it was nowhere near the cervix at all (the bleeding was due to stressing my body, nothing to do with the placenta) so... likely any bleeding will be unrelated unless you are one of those few whom it does not move for.

[Melly24]

I had a marginal previa at 18 weeks with DD. I had some very light pink bleeding at this stage which lasted about two hours tops. The edge of the placenta was just ever so slightly over the edge of the internal os. I had a repeat scan at 30 weeks to see if it had moved and it was 5cm clear.

There is a great big whooping chance that it will migrate north

[StarMama]

From reading if previa is in the second trimester the odds it WON'T move is like 2%. If it is still previa at the third trimester the odds of not moving is 24%. At the perinatologist's office at 15 weeks I had complete previa. I had my anatomy scan today (18 weeks) and I'm marginal with it being .5 or 1.5 cm from the OS (depending on which measurement you're looking at).

Pretty good chances it'll move. Pretty good chances that you'll have no bleeding issues. Who needs the extra stress though?!

[trekkingirl]

I really don't understand why they even bother to tell women this. Especially when they don't back it up by telling you that low lying placentas will be marginal previa until you get bigger and it moves up! This is one of those things where ignorance really is bliss. Now all you're going to do is worry about a c section when really everything is totally normal. That's what happened to me. They will probably give you a few more ultrasounds. Each time the placenta will be a little higher. Really don't worry about it at all. Everything is great.

[littlest birds]

Yes a better term is "low-lying placenta" and I think it is scaring you unnecessarily. Early low placentas naturally resolve. I had one and the midwife seemed completely unworried when she told me. That it almost always moves is exactly what she said. It did and there was no problem. She did check it whenever she checked the baby.

Probably your doc gave you no info because he's not concerned either. Just throwing big words around.

I think it will resolve.

[lillymonster]

I had it, mine went away in plenty of time. They found it at 20 weeks and did a sono at 36 weeks for something else and it had moved.

[MeepyCat]

Yeah... don't google placenta previa. Or at least don't read Wikipedia about it.

I want to reassure you that the placenta will not move into a worse position. As the uterus expands, all points within it get further away from each other. Imagine if you drew two dots on a balloon and then blew it up - the dots wouldn't get closer together.

When I was diagnosed with complete previa at 18 weeks, the midwives told me that only about three in a thousand fail to clear up before delivery - and that's the stats for COMPLETE previas. Your previa is just marginal, which means you're halfway home already. You should get a follow-up ultrasound in the third trimester, and you should check for conditions like vasa previa as well, but the most likely outcome here is that the placenta will migrate upwards and out of the way.