Umbilical Cord Abnormalities

Umbilical cord abnormalities are many and some of no clinical significance, such as the false knots, others can cause fetal mortality, such as vasa previa. Many of the umbilical cord complications can be diagnoses still in utero now as the prenatal ultrasound has become more sophisticated.

However, numerous umbilical cord abnormalities are not observable before the actual delivery. You can expect that they can occur in greater percent in certain conditions, such as monochorionic twins and placenta abruption.

Knowing the risk factors can help you to act quickly and avert fetal mortality.

The normal length of the umbilical cord is from 35 to 80 cm, and the diameter is 1-2 cm and 11 helices. About 5% of the cords are shorter than 35 cm and longer than 80 cm

The difference in cord length is thought to be the movement of babies in utero. There is not scientific prove of this though.

Short cords can signal fetal movement disorders and intrauterine constraint.

Some say that the short umbilical cord is a cause for cesarean and causes complications in vaginal delivery, but this is not true. Even with a cord as small as 13 cm, people have given birth naturally.

Excessive long cords are often causing more complications, they can be entangled around the baby and cause Umbilical Cord Accident. Watch this video to help you prevent that:

Umbilical cord accident can occur in utero. You can avert it if you count the baby kicks from 26 weeks on. Fetal kicks are a sign of active and growing baby Make sure you count them. Try to drink water before you go to sleep which will make you get up during the night. Be aware of your baby in the uterus.

Umbilical cord accidents are caused by the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's body.

Single Artery Umbilical Cord

The umbilical cord usually has two arteries and one vein. In rare cases, there is just one artery, which is also called two-vessel umbilical cord, 2 vessel umbilical cord or single artery umbilical cord.

Single artery umbilical cord is believed to be caused by atrophy of a previously normal artery or failure one of the arteries to develop.

Umbilical cord abnormalities related to the number of arteries in the cord is usually easily spot by a sonographer. The vein is larger than the arteries. If there are only two vessels on a cross section of the cord, or if there is a single vessel on only 1 side of the fetal bladder, there is a sign of a 2 vessel umbilical cord.

The best preventive action is making more tests for abnormalities, such as cardiovascular abnormalities, GI defects, esophageal artesia, renal defects, as well as chromosomal anomalies. Trisomy 18 is the chromosomal anomaly most highly associated with single umbilical artery.

Other umbilical cord abnormailites are

Umbilical cord prolapse

Velamentous insertion of umbilical cord

Umbilical cord around neck

Umbilical cord hernia

Umbilical cord cyst

Return from Umbilical Cord Abnormalities to Umbilical Cord Video Gallery

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