Fetal bowel can sometimes appear bright on prenatal ultrasound depending on the transducer used and machine settings. However, echogenic bowel in the fetus is not a significant finding unless the bowel appears as bright as bone (the brightness of the iliac wing can be used a reference). If the ultrasound report does confirm echogenic fetal bowel, further management should include
Fetal echogenic bowel is present in up to 1.8% of second trimester ultrasound exams. It can be due to congenital cytomegalovirus infection, cystic fibrosis, intra-amniotic bleeding, fetal growth restriction, aneuploidy or gastrointestinal obstruction. Therefore, further work-up is warranted.
ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 226: Screening for Fetal Chromosomal Abnormalities
ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 162: Prenatal Diagnostic Testing for Genetic Disorders
Outcome of infants presenting with echogenic bowel in the second trimester of pregnancy
Locate a Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist: SMFM
Take a post-test and get CME credits
Please log in to ObGFirst to access the 2T US Atlas
OBG Project CME requires a modern web browser (Internet Explorer 10+, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge). Certain educational activities may require additional software to view multimedia, presentation, or printable versions of their content. These activities will be marked as such and will provide links to the required software. That software may be: Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft PowerPoint, Windows Media Player, or Real Networks Real One Player.
This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications.
The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.
Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information
presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.
Jointly provided by
