Wife is worried child won't be tall

macmurchu

Hi lads
We just has our 32 week scan. First child. All has always been healthy and well and relaxed baby all the rest. The kid's head circumference was described in the chart of growth as normal (around the 50th percentile), their little roundy belly was above average and their femur length was below average (maybe 40th percentile to look at the chart he plotted).

Wife became anxious after this point. Now at no stage has there ever been a suggestion of anything but healthy development. Private obstetrician, plenty of scans. She says she doesn't want the child to be short or have short legs. I'm 5'9" and described as short legs long back, she's 5'7" or 5'8" and longer legged, was described as being a very long baby. Her mother and two brothers are quite tall.

Few things here
1) we don't know how to fully interpret the findings at this stage. Don't know if 32 week percentile measurement has any bearing on adult growth

2) we can't exactly return the baby and get a taller one. This aspect of her reaction pisses me off

3) I'm worried she is showing some kind of superficial tendency that her extended family does when they talk about how someone looks

She says she is just worried and doesn't want them to be bullied for being short. My response was that we're hardly short and what yardstick are you measuring them by? I got along just fine despite being called short in later teens and the kid will only care about something in their physique if you let them think there's something wrong.

She got ****ty with me and says that I don't understand what she's saying, I'm saying the child is perfectly healthy what more do you want, a short child is not a bad child and they're not exactly going to be a dwarf given our heights.

Any thoughts??
Cheers

bennyineire

macmurchu wrote: »

Hi lads
We just has our 32 week scan. First child. All has always been healthy and well and relaxed baby all the rest. The kid's head circumference was described in the chart of growth as normal (around the 50th percentile), their little roundy belly was above average and their femur length was below average (maybe 40th percentile to look at the chart he plotted).

Wife became anxious after this point. Now at no stage has there ever been a suggestion of anything but healthy development. Private obstetrician, plenty of scans. She says she doesn't want the child to be short or have short legs. I'm 5'9" and described as short legs long back, she's 5'7" or 5'8" and longer legged, was described as being a very long baby. Her mother and two brothers are quite tall.

Few things here
1) we don't know how to fully interpret the findings at this stage. Don't know if 32 week percentile measurement has any bearing on adult growth

2) we can't exactly return the baby and get a taller one. This aspect of her reaction pisses me off

3) I'm worried she is showing some kind of superficial tendency that her extended family does when they talk about how someone looks

She says she is just worried and doesn't want them to be bullied for being short. My response was that we're hardly short and what yardstick are you measuring them by? I got along just fine despite being called short in later teens and the kid will only care about something in their physique if you let them think there's something wrong.

She got ****ty with me and says that I don't understand what she's saying, I'm saying the child is perfectly healthy what more do you want, a short child is not a bad child and they're not exactly going to be a dwarf given our heights.

Any thoughts??
Cheers

Wow just wow, don't know how I can help you on this but this is just crazy talk.

But I guess this is her was of manifesting her worry and stress about the pregnancy and how the birth is going to go.

Look she us heavily pregnant at the moment so don't rock the boat with her, just play along with her as best as you can.

As soon as she as she holds the baby in her arms for the first time all this kind of worry about the height of the child will be forgotten.

One_Of_Shanks

Main thing is the kid will be healthy.

Yee can worry about his/her basketball career down the road.

missmatty

That's actually mental. Going by both your heights the baby won't be short anyway. I'm 5'0 and I can assure you it's no big deal in the great scheme of things.

nullzero

missmatty wrote: »

That's actually mental. Going by both your heights the baby won't be short anyway. I'm 5'0 and I can assure you it's no big deal in the great scheme of things.

Could you speak up? I can't hear you up here.

missmatty

Lol, luckily that doesn't matter on the interwebz!

Blazer

My young fella was only 5lbs born and in the 86percentile for his age upto 4. He's. He's now in the 50percentile for his age so all good. As people said as long as the baby is healthy that's the main thing.

the_pen_turner

i think you need to take her to the childrens hospital and show her what a problem with your child looks like

Bicycle

Growth occurs in spurts. The fact that the baby overall size is in the 50th percentile and the femur length is in the 40th percentile means at least that there is a level of harmony and lack of disproportion.

But to get things into perspective, our elder child was in the 99th percentile for height when she was 18 months old. There was a serious worry that she would be too tall. She was sent for a brain scan and hormone tests to rule out a tumour.

Nothing was found and she is now 5'6". Meanwhile her siblings, who didn't cause any overgrowth worry, are 5'9" and 6'1" (sister and brother) respectively.

And I'm 5'3".

quadrifoglio verde

I was 5 lbs when I was born.
I'm now 6 foot, half a foot taller than the father and a full foot taller than the mother.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Also so what if he isn't tall. Height doesn't make someone a better person

Wesser

The measurement is of absolutely no significance whatsoever.

Frankly your wife's attitude is extremely immature and I dread to think what worries will be raised as motherhood proceeds.

chakademus

I think it's really normal to have what seem to be superficial worries like what the baby will look like, when pregnant. As someone else said it's probably your partner channeling bigger anxieties into bitesize chunks.

My advice is just to hold her hand and say something supportive. Next week another worry will probably take its place. Its all really natural.

I'm sure when your little baby lands she'll think they're the best thing since sliced bread. Regardless of their femur length and head circumference.

volchitsa

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i think you need to take her to the childrens hospital and show her what a problem with your child looks like

No you really really don't, believe me.

Subcomandante Marcos

A make child will not be smaller than the mother unless there's a physical development disorder or impairment.

Odds are he'll be as tall as yourself or taller.

Your wife is being ridiculous though.

eurasian

Sorry OP, but your wife needs councelling or you have to file a divorce.
Her explanation to protect baby from "being bullied for being short" is both ridiculous and stupid.

The key point is thath a baby hasn't even born yet.

infogiver

Pregnancy can make you hyper anxious and over dramatic.
If the radiologist doesn't say " oh this is the finest specimen of a 32 week gestation baby I have ever seen in all my years looking at scans", then it's a total calamity.
I don't know what your going to do really.
If her family are the breed of people who judge people on physical appearance then you probably knew that before you decided to have a baby with her so in all honesty, you can't really complain about it now.

volchitsa

To the OP, look, don't worry about it, it's being pregnant that melts your brain!

I remember when I was pregnant with my first, a colleague at work coming in one morning and telling some banal story about a Down syndrome person on the bus doing or saying something a bit funny, I don't remember exactly. Everyone laughed/chuckled, me too - and then suddenly it was like somebody just punched me, and I felt this terror that my child would be disabled. For no reason at all. And he was fine. But for the rest of my pregnancy I had this sneaking fear that he was disabled in some way.

But I think maybe it's because when you're pregnant, especially with the first, you've all these nameless fears you can't really talk about, because there are so many and you know that most of them are stupid - and then your brain just picks one anyway and you can obsess over it.

So in your case, just tell her that the size in the womb is more about how well he's growing depending on the placenta, and that being small at birth isn't a good indicator of size later on, never mind adult size (which is correct) for that reason.

Also that those measures aren't very accurate, I was told my babies were all different sizes compared to what they really were - the eldest was meant to be huge, and he was just normal (but with a biggish head) and youngest was meant to be small, and he was the biggest of three. Also my second was quite small at birth, and is now really tall. They're really only very rough measurements, to pick up on major medical anomalies.

Orion

eurasian wrote: »

Sorry OP, but your wife needs councelling or you have to file a divorce.
Her explanation to protect baby from "being bullied for being short" is both ridiculous and stupid.

The key point is thath a baby hasn't even born yet.

What's ridiculous is your over-reaction. This is a very unhelpful and insulting post of a type that is unwelcome here.

twowheelsonly

The biggest problem here is the hospitals even discussing or revealing information like that.
Percentiles my ar se. That's medical reference information that no parents need to know unless it looks like there is actually some problem. In particular, feeding this nonsense to an expectant mother when she's probably already vunerable is ridiculous. It's as if they feel the need to tell people everything regardless of the parents need to know. Seems to be the cool thing to do. 'Need to know' is more than enough information for people with plenty on their plate already.
As others have said, if the baby is generally healthy then forget anything else they tell you.

Second problem is your wife listening to this BS and interpreting it as if it was gospel. I don't blame her for that though, even if she is over-reacting. I still blame the so called medical experts that think sharing a little knowledge is a good thing.

promises

As people have said before I'm sure the baby will be a fine height considering you both are. But even if they are not, it doesn't matter. I'm short but never got bullied for it..but often got hurtful things said because I was skinny, my best female mate got bullied for been too tall. Kids are cruel and will find anything they can to target others. Just pray for healthy baby who can deal with these situations.

Moonbeam

There are so many stresses involved with being a 1st time mother , different people panic about different things .
She is probably anxious and although it seems crazy we do worry about "silly" things .
I have 4 kids ,I am 5' 4' / 164cm.He is 6'4".
I have an 8 year old(since Jan) who was 56cm and 7lb 4 and is now 135cm and a 6 year old (since Jan) who is 114cm and was 48cm and 7lb 8 born .
One is above average height and the other is tiny .
Please don't tell her she is being stupid but support her and re-enforce all the positives .
Being pregnant is not always easy .

jimmycrackcorm

macmurchu wrote:

Any thoughts??

Yes, don't irritate a pregnant woman.

jlm29

The accuracy of those scans re size is questionable at best. The consultant could start the marker line thingy a couple of mm further up/down the femur the next day, and tell you you're having a long legged gazelle like creature. The last scan I had, the consultant told me the baby's head was measuring at 33 weeks (I was 29-30 wks at the time), and the rest of it at 31 weeks. I had a little panic about getting the big head out, but it's my third, and I know that realistically speaking, I will go back the next day, and she'll say something different. It's not because she's bad at her job, it's just that the measurements are tiny, and a little bit subjective. Now, I know when I go back, she won't say I'm having a dwarf, it'll still be a whopping big baby, but it will be in proportion. The next day, it might have long legs and a tiny head!

mrsmags16

We also have isolated relatively low femur length (I am a Dr so peek at the centiles when waiting to see consultant) and really it would need to be below 2nd centile to be looked into further. My husband is 6'4" and I am tallish so we ain't having a short baby. Pregnant women freak out about odd things alright.

Ginny

Does she actually understand what the scans mean, and going along with that their accuracy?

It is very common to suffer depression or anxiety during depression, has she shown any other signs? Could she talk to her dr?

If it's a case of there being definitely no depression and she is fully aware of what the scans mean then honestly I'd sit her down and tell her she's being ridiculous First off she's gotten to 32 weeks with a healthy baby, with I'm assuming no complications, she's a very lucky woman. Secondly height is going to be the least of her worries when your baby is born, there are far far far more important things to worried about for your children. Thirdly if she's so upset about possible height issues (which aren't dictated by or indicated a scan at 32 weeks) she will have burnt herself out mentally by the time the child is 2 worrying about stuff.

Dr Bolouswki

I'm not a medical Doctor btw. I'd say be cool daddio. Fears manifest themselves in different ways. I'm sure you guys will love your baby whatever way things turn out - healthy is great, and the stats don't seem to confirm anything other than a nice proportionate baby with no further investigation needed. Calm her down and give her a kiss and tell her not to worry - it's all gonna be great!

shamrock55

**** me,she obviously has nothing else to worry about

You were given waaaay too much information, information that nobody, even a specialist can interpret fully. It would have been better if you had just been told that the child was healthy and growing well, which is what all that percentile stuff is actually saying.

Victor

Pregnancy body size is only one factor in adult body size. Genetics (especially parental body size), a stable food supply and other environmental factors are also factor.

In some populations, children are on average 5cm taller than their parent's generation - over 100 years, that's 20-25cm.

volchitsa

mrsmags16 wrote: »

We also have isolated relatively low femur length (I am a Dr so peek at the centiles when waiting to see consultant) and really it would need to be below 2nd centile to be looked into further. My husband is 6'4" and I am tallish so we ain't having a short baby. Pregnant women freak out about odd things alright.

Actually now I think about it, that's exactly what I was told about my youngest, that the femurs were in a lower centile than the head, but because he was my third and they all had big heads I took it to mean that he was smaller than the other two.

In any case he was perfectly normal, slightly heavier at birth than the other two, and now as a teen he's taller than one brother and possibly the tallest of the three (they're all normal-sized, and no short legs!!)

So yeah, just reassure her that it's all perfectly normal variation, like I said above.

And whatever you do, don't terrify her with suggestions that it could be worse, like someone above said to take her to see really ill kids - not unless you want her to spend the rest of the pregnancy in a state of insomnia and panic. That really would be bad for the baby!
It'll be grand.

76544567

Your wife is stressed.
So would I be if I was pregnant.
Totally normal.
Dont worry yourself about it.
And just be there for her.
Its a happy but worrying time for a woman at 32 weeks.