Background: It is well known that birth weight is related to later childhood growth and adult height. It can therefore be hypothesized that this relationship exists also for fetal size before birth.
Objective: To verify whether a child's final height can be predicted by sonographic biometry in utero.
Subjects: We evaluated in 116 healthy children both ultrasound measurements in utero and postnatal measurements at a mean age of 6.0 +/- 1.4 years.
Methods: The following fetal ultrasound measurements were obtained: crown-rump length in the first trimester; biparietal diameter, head circumference and femur length in the second and third trimester.
Results: Midparental height of the children was correlated both with crown-rump length in the first trimester and with femur length (FL) in the second and third trimester. Predicted adult height was correlated both with FL in the second and third trimester, while present height of the child was correlated with FL only at the third trimester.
Conclusions: FL showed a close relationship with postnatal measurements. For the extreme values of FL, it seems possible to make quite an accurate prediction of the limits of future height. We can reasonably speculate, therefore, that the basis for the future growth of the child can be found in utero.