Measurement of Placental Thickness by Ultrasound in the third trimester

Abstract

This study was conducted with aim of evaluating placental thickness, measured at the insertion of the umbilical cord, as a parameter for estimating gestational age of the fetus. The study was conducted on 100 women with normal singleton pregnancies in the third trimester at Elnohoud teaching Hospital and Hamdeen's clinic from 25\7\2007 to 13\12\2007, Ultrasound was done by using Toshiba just vision 200 with 3.75 MHz convex probe and Tokimec cs-2020 with 3.5MHz probe. After estimating the fetal age (in weeks) by using biparietal diameter (BPD), femur length (FL), the placental thickness was calculated (in millimeters) during third trimester. It was observed that the placental thickness in millimeters in all patients along with the third trimester has positive linear correlation with gestational age in weeks. We concluded that the measurement of the placental thickness is an important parameter for estimating gestational age in the third trimester in normal singleton pregnancies along with other parameters like BPD, FL, AC & HC where the exact duration of pregnancy is not known.