Suddenly measuring large...

[camprunner]

I am 33 weeks pregnant. I had an appointment with my midwife today and she said that I was measuring 36 weeks. I didn't think this was a big deal. She said that the part that concerned her was the four cm in 2 weeks.

For some reason, I can't seem to find any information on what her concerns might be. I know that I've read about too much amniotic fluid indicating certain birth defects but can't find anything about which ones.

Can someone steer me in the right direction to find out more? I like to be prepared. I've not been tested for GD. I feel fine, no swelling, I was evening starting to feel a little smaller until that point.

Btw, my midwife is a homebirth midwife. If I go to a doctor (because of the state I live in) it will be seen as having no prenatal care up until this point.

TIA

laura

[pamamidwife]

could be a change in baby's position. in my opinion, up to 3cm difference for the weeks is normal. I'd wait and see what happens next visit.

the numbers are arbitrary - your baby is growing. baby could easily be in a different position, higher up in your uterus, than last visit. sounds completely reasonable to me.

[camprunner]

Thank you! My midwife just seemed down right alarmed! I'm glad it's normal!

[coloradoalice]

I am only speaking from my experience here, but I would be very tempted to be screened for GD if I were you. I had the exact same thing happen to me when I was 32 weeks, I just started gaining 2-3 cm a week. Unfortunately my midwife (also a lay-midwife) did not recommend doing GD testing even with my huge growth. My baby was born at 38 weeks, I was measuring 47 cm, and I had GD that was completely out of control. My baby was very sick and in the nicu for 6 days. I had a very bad c-section with hemorraging. My baby was 10lb,12oz!! I was not able to have contractions because my uterus was so distended. It ended up being a horrible ordeal, and the frustrating part is it could have been avoided! The GD test is not a big deal, and I think it's totally worth doing if you have any doubt. By the way, I also felt just fine, and I did not have any indicators of GD, nor do I have any diabetes in my family. They call it "asymptomatic GD" and it's fairly common. Good luck!!

[camprunner]

Thank you for your response. I have not had a one hour test or whatever. Dh (who is way more involved in my health in general than most husbands) says that there would be sugar spilling into my urine if I had GD. I actually dip the stick and the midwife looks over it so I've seen the strip. There is usually a tiny bit of protein and last time the white blood cells were low and there were lukosites (sp?) but I'd just been sick with the stomach flu. So is what dh is saying ture?

[coloradoalice]

I only occasionally spilled sugars when we did the urine test. It was never enough to cause concern. The only way to get a truly accurate idea of your sugar is to test your blood. That will give you an exact #. You can buy the little machines for pretty cheap, but the test strips can be fairly expensive. If your midwife has a machine maybe she would lend it to you and you could track your sugar during the course of a day. Then you would have a much better picture of how your body is handling sugar.

[hippiemom]

This happened to me in my third pregnancy, I just started grooowing until I was measuring about 9 weeks past my dates. I too felt fine overall (if not a bit cumbersome), had no swelling, and was not spilling suger. I did do a glucose tolerance test and my #'s were borderline high. I had a lay midwife and was planning my second homebirth. Though there did not seem to be any problems with me or the baby's health (as evidenced by ultrasound, etc) I was carrying about 1/3 more amniotic fluid than normal and a big baby (just one). This caused me to go into labor and stall out 3 times at term, as the baby would float back up and not engage properly. He was measuring 10lbs at term. I did not want to see how big he would get in the weeks it may have taken to go into labor and not stall out... I was also worried about the very real risk of prolapsed cord if my water broke spontaneously, as well as my ability to clamp down well after the birth due to how distended I was. I consented to having my water broken by my gp in the hospital. This was done in the morning. By 6pm I went into very hard and fast (drug free) labor, and my 10lb 2 oz son was born into my own hands after just 2 hours. A few hours after the birth I bled quite a bit and required vigorous massage by a few nurses to clamp down. I nursed the baby like crazy and felt better.

I believe a sharp, dramatic growth spurt warrants finding out "why". It is not necessarily dire straits, but for me it contributed greatly to my peace of mind to investigate it and get backup help in place that I ended up needing.

[camprunner]

Ok so my questions I guess are...can this wait almost 2 weeks until my next appointment before I ask questions? (I'm going every too weeks now). I could probably request that my GP order a glucose test but they will not deliver the baby so I'd have to go to the health department most likely for that. I'm definately looking into the gestational diabetes thing. I'm only 26 and in fairly good shape. My first baby was fairly small...I definately want to get it treated if that's what it is.

[hippiemom]

I would say if you do not want to wait 2 weeks, call your caregiver and ask to come sooner.. With pregnant women, most do not have to wait long to be seen if they have a special concern, and if you are going to be worried up until you go, maybe it is worth checking this out to save some stress.

Good luck with it, if it is any reassurance everything worked out fine in the end. I did not have GD and my son was perfect, no health issues at all, HUGE but born fast and (relatively) easily. We went home the next day happy as can be! Blessings,
Laura

[camprunner]

Well I took the survey here... http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs_details.cfm?from=&pubs_id=113

And I've read that in a couple of other places too. I'm at such low risk that I probably don't need to be tested unless they start seeing a problem. I've also read that up to 3 cm above is normal. So I'm thinking that I'll wait and see at the next appointment and if it has gone up even more then I'll talk to her about the options. Thank you so much because now i'll have GD in mind.

[pamamidwife]

there's alot of great info on GD - really, the only accurate testing is to test your blood with a glucometer, not the glucose tolerance test, which is horribly inaccurate with preg women.

[rainbowmoon]

I measured up to 5 weeks ahead with DS depending on who was measuring. mw's weren't worried and he was fine. though he was on the larger side. :LOL