Early detection of prenatal cardiocirculatory compromise in small for gestational age infants.

Background: Impairment of gas and substrate exchange through the placenta leads to fetal hypoxia and growth restriction. Oxygenation of vital organs is maintained with preferential perfusion at the expense of less vital organs, challenging the fetal cardiovascular system.

Objectives: To identify cardiovascular compromise in preterm small for gestational age (SGA) infants using the cardiac biomarker B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), which indicates the workload of the myocardium.

[Group counselling for the second trimester ultrasound: can group counselling be an alternative for individual counselling?].

Objective: To compare group counselling to individual counselling with respect to the second trimester ultrasound.

Design: A prospective cohort study at two hospitals.

Method: At one hospital, 100 pregnant women were counselled on the risks and benefits of the second trimester ultrasound in groups of up to 15 patients.

The fetal profile line: a proposal for a sonographic reference line to classify forehead and mandible anomalies in the second and third trimester.

Objectives: To test the fetal profile (FP) line, defined as the line that passes through the anterior border of the mandible and the nasion, as a reference line for forehead and mandible anomalies.

Methods: Volumes of 248 normal and 24 pathological fetuses (16-36 and 19-37 weeks' gestation, respectively) were analysed retrospectively. When the FP line passes anteriorly, across or posteriorly to the frontal bone, this was defined as 'negative', 'zero' or 'positive', respectively.