Relationships between Maternal Factors and Equine Fetal Volume Measured during early Pregnancy by Using Three-dimensional Ultrasound

In the last two decades three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound has been established as a clinical method in human reproductive medicine and allows the measurement of the fetal volume (FV). In the first trimester in woman, FV measurements have been correlated with gestational age and neonatal weight. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different maternal factors, hormone concentrations and the fetal sex on early equine FV determined by 3D ultrasound. For this purpose, 149 German warmblood mares were examined once transrectally at day 45 ± 1 of gestation (0 = day of ovulation) with the portable 3D ultrasound device Voluson i (GE, Zipf, Austria).
Source: Journal of Equine Veterinary Science - Category: Veterinary Research Authors: Source Type: research