I had an umbilical cord cyst found at my eight-week ultrasound. The scientific research seems dated and limited, and I’m wondering if this is more frequently found now given new ultrasound tech and how scared I should be.
—Anonymous
I’ll start with: I’m sorry you are going through this. At this stage, pregnancy can feel fragile already, and any risks only add to that.
Umbilical cord cysts are a reasonably common finding in the first trimester. Estimates suggest they occur in perhaps 2% to 3% of pregnancies. It’s not clear why they occur in most cases — there are various theories related to the formation of the umbilical cord.
With a single umbilical cord cyst, multiple studies show no relationship between having a cyst and worse pregnancy outcomes. With multiple cysts, it is much more likely that they reflect a chromosomal abnormality or other issue with the fetus, and in many cases these pregnancies end in miscarriage. In your case — as is typically the case — a single cyst is not something to be worried about.
Your question about ultrasounds is worth discussing. The issue here is not so much the new technology but the use of ultrasounds early on in pregnancy. It was not always common to do an ultrasound at the very start of pregnancy. If you wait until the end of the first trimester, the vast majority of these cysts would have resolved on their own. For this reason, yes, you likely hear more about this issue than you would have in years past.
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Thank you very much for this post. With my first child, they found an umbilical cyst after a normal DNA test, so I deep dived into the literature on what it could mean and concluded “probably nothing” (and everything turned out great, it went away, my son is happy and healthy). I definitely could have done with this reassurance at that time!