Measuring Fundal Height Chart
As your belly grows your fundal height should also increase.
Measuring fundal height chart. After 20 weeks of pregnancy fundal height often matches the number of weeks you ve been pregnant. That means if you re 29 weeks pregnant your fundal height will usually be about 29 centimeters. Fundal height when expressed in centimeters roughly corresponds to gestational age in weeks between 16 and 36 weeks for a vertex fetus.
Bjog 2018 sought to assess the accuracy of routinely collected anthropometric measures in predicting gestational. This measurement helps your provider estimate your baby s size growth rate and position during the second half of your pregnancy. It should match the fetus gestational age in weeks within 1 to 3 cm e g a pregnant woman s uterus at 22 weeks should measure 19 to 25 cm.
Fundal height measures the distance from your pubic bone to the top of your uterus in centimeters. But there are many reasons why the measurement may be higher or lower than expected. As the pregnancy progresses the uterus expands in the abdomen with its top moving up by about 4 centimeters per month an equivalent of two finger widths.
Fundal height or mcdonald s rule is a measure of the size of the uterus used to assess fetal growth and development during pregnancy it is measured from the top of the mother s uterus to the top of the mother s pubic symphysis. For example if you re at 20 weeks your fundal height should be around 18 to 22 centimeters. The measurement should also match your gestational period give or take two centimeters.
As a very general rule a woman s fundal height should be within 1 to 3 centimeters of the baby s gestational age in weeks. For example at 20 weeks your fundal height should be about 17 to 23 centimeters. Your health care practitioner will also palpate your abdomen to get an idea of your baby s size.
Fundal height is the distance from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus measured in centimeters. The doctor will record your fundal height measurement in centimeters and enter it on your chart. The expectation is that after week 24 of pregnancy the fundal height for a normally growing baby will match the number of weeks of pregnancy plus or minus 2 centimeters.
However one randomised trial found the fundal height measurement to be unhelpful in the detection of low birth weight infants lindhard et al 1990 with a pick. A fundal height measurement is typically done to determine if a baby is small for its gestational age. After 24 weeks of pregnancy the fundal height in centimeters is roughly equivalent to the week of gestation.
The measurement is generally defined as the distance in centimeters from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus. After the 20th week and until the 36th week of pregnancy the fundal height measurement usually matches the number of weeks of pregnancy this means that for a woman at the 26th week of pregnancy the fundal height measurement should be. Fundal height is used to assess gestational age although reliability has been called in to question other anthropometric measurements may also be useful especially in low resource settings where ultrasound is not available for pregnancy dating pugh et al.