Fetal Biometrics in Confirming Restrictions of Intrauterine Growth

Abstract

Introduction: Growth and development are biological phenomenons involving cell mass increase and differentiation of form or function, respectively. For diagnostic purposes, the benefits of ultrasound are used for the biometric evolution of fetal growth.

Objective: To determine fetal biometric measurements mostly associated with fetal growth restriction in infants who suffered intrauterine growth restriction.

Methods: A descriptive and retrospective longitudinal study was carried out with pregnant women from two health areas of Santa Clara Municipality, who finished their pregnancy between September 2013 and October 2018 and whose newborns experienced growth restriction. The sample was classified at birth into small and adequate, according to trophic condition; and, in each group, the relationship with percentile values of biometric variables in the last two trimesters was studied.

Results: Values below the tenth percentile predominated in all biometrics and in the two trimesters. In all infants and during the whole fetal period, abdominal circumference was below the tenth percentile. In the variables femur length and cephalic circumference, the highest percentiles were found in the third trimester; while, from the second trimester on, the same occurred in the variable biparietal diameter, possibly related to asymmetric growth restrictions.

Conclusions: The biometric variable abdominal circumference is, from the second trimester on, reliable in the detection of intrauterine growth restrictions; its existence below the tenth percentile should serve as certainty of its existence, even when the trophic condition of the newborn seems to reveal another reality.