Symphysial Fundal Height (Sfh) Measurement in Pregnancy for Detecting Abnormal Fetal Growth

Summary

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 1 study with a total of 1639 subjects comparing symphysis fundal height (SFH) measurement with clinical abdominal palpation. There was no difference in the two reported primary outcomes of incidence of small-for-gestational age (RR 1.32; 95% CI 0.92 to 1.90) or perinatal death. There was no difference in the reported secondary outcomes of neonatal hypoglycaemia, admission to neonatal nursery, admission to the neonatal nursery for fetal intrauterine growth restriction, induction of labour and caesarean section. No trials comparing SFH with serial ultrasound were identified.

A meta-analysis 2 evaluated the diagnostic value of symphysis-fundal height (SFH) for identifying large-for-gestational- age (LGA) and macrosomia. SFH to identify LGA and macrosomia provided a low sensitivity (0.76 and 0.30, respectively), specificity (0.67 and 0.80, respectively) and diagnostic odds ratio (6 and 4, respectively) and 'neither exclusion nor confirmation' strategy (positive and negative likelihood ratios <10 and >0.1, respectively).