Fetal Reduction

Having healthy multiple pregnancies is good until it’s a reason for a miscarriage or the chances of delivering all healthy babies decline. 

So to improve the chances of a healthy pregnancy, fetal reduction is done. Fetal reduction is a surgery that reduces the number of fetuses in multiple pregnancies. Also called selective pregnancy or multi-fetal surgery decreases the risk to the mother’s health and complication to the remaining fetuses. 

Causes for Fetal Reduction
The following are the reasons why fetal reduction is required:

• Too many fetuses lead to miscarriage
• Possibilities of stillbirth – the death of a baby before or during pregnancy.
• Premature problems with the lungs, heart, stomach, and brain are likely to prevail.
• Intellectual disability, vision, and hearing impairments like lifelong issues might occur.

Procedure for fetal reduction surgery
Typically the surgery is done during the first trimester, I.e. the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A stage where fetuses are still in separate fluid-filled compartments. As a result of which your surgeon can easily look into the fetuses with an ultrasound device. Using the monitor screen as a guide your doctor will gently inject a special drug into the compartment. This drug will quickly stop the fetus’s heart.

Sometimes, the surgeon might use a radiofrequency ablation for fetal reduction. A device that uses electric currents to restrict the blood flow from your umbilical cord to one or more fetuses.  

Since this fetal reduction lasts for a few minutes, you might be given anesthesia, so you won’t feel any pain throughout the surgery. After this again an ultrasound will be performed to check the health of your other fetus.

Post Fetal Reduction Care and Result
There is a rare possibility of infection from fetal reduction. And for the survival of the rest of the fetuses, your doctor will provide you with special instructions to follow. Also, you might be asked to get a repeated follow-up regarding your and the growing baby’s health.