Fetal echocardiography is the ultrasonic evaluation of the human fetal cardiovascular system. General antepartum obstetrical ultrasound has become a standard part of gestational care and is commonly used for the determination of fetal age, size, gender, or well-being and for the detection of congenital anomalies. A variety of maternal or fetal disorders may result in abnormality of the fetal ca...

AIMS Detection and careful stratification of fetal heart rate (FHR) is extremely important in all pregnancies. The most lethal cardiac rhythm disturbances occur during apparently normal pregnancies where FHR and rhythm are regular and within normal or low-normal ranges. These hidden depolarization and repolarization abnormalities, associated with genetic ion channelopathies cannot be detected b...

Primary fetal hydrothorax is a relatively rare disorder, occurring in 1 out of 15,000 pregnancies, but connected with high perinatal mortality. In the event of little or no progress of the effusion or stable clinical course, conservative management seems to be the most appropriate course of action. In nearly half of the cases, a placement of only one pleuroamniotic shunt enables a total regress...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical impact of fetal echocardiography before 16 weeks' gestation on the management of pregnancies with fetuses at risk of congenital heart disease. DESIGN AND SETTING Observational study in a fetal medicine unit. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS 222 consecutive women with high risk pregnancies (230 fetuses) underwent transabdominal fetal echocardiography at a median ge...

Objective: To evaluate the clinical impact of fetal echocardiography before 16 weeks’ gestation on the management of pregnancies with fetuses at risk of congenital heart disease. Design and setting: Observational study in a fetal medicine unit. Participants and methods: 222 consecutive women with high risk pregnancies (230 fetuses) underwent transabdominal fetal echocardiography at a median ges...

BACKGROUND Previously reported pathological series suggest that cardiac malformations are universal in trisomy 18. We examined our experience of fetal echocardiography in trisomy 18 for comparison. METHODS Of 255 fetuses with trisomy 18 detected in our centre between January 1999 and June 2004, 174 were evaluated using fetal echocardiography. Our results were compared to four previous echocar...