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Oligohydramnios
When Amniotic Fluid is Too Low By Laurie Dove
When Koni Howard was 25 and pregnant with her second child, she sensed something wasn't quite right. The Oak Ridge, Tenn., mother wasn't gaining much weight, and at 36 weeks into the pregnancy, was continuing too measure small for the baby's due date.
"Unlike my first baby, [my second child] hardly ever moved," she says. "I had a feeling there might be a problem."
She just didn't know what the problem might be. Despite numerous blood tests and non-stress tests, which tracked the number of movements made by the baby, Howard's obstetrician didn't find anything to cause major concern.
However, at 36 weeks into the pregnancy, an ultrasound showed low amniotic fluid levels. Howard was diagnosed with oligohydramnios, a condition in which the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby is below normal levels.
"I was extremely surprised," Howard says, of both the diagnosis and what happened next.
She had already returned home after the ultrasound and expected to hear the results at her next appointment. "When the phone rang, I never suspected it would be my doctor," she says. "I knew it was after 5 p.m. and her offices were closed. So when she told me, 'I think we're ready to have this baby,' I knew something was up."
By the time Howard located her husband, found a babysitter for their 3-year-old daughter and returned to the hospital, the news had started to sink in. "I wasn't worried, even when the doctor told me there was hardly any fluid left for the baby," she says. "I was just so happy that I'd finally get to meet my baby."
It isn't unusual for a pregnant woman to have low levels of amniotic fluid in the third trimester of pregnancy, according to Dr. Scott Roberts, an obstetrician at Wichita, Kan.-based Wesley Medical Center who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. Although, Roberts adds, oligohydramnios is a condition that can be diagnosed any number of times during a pregnancy.
