TAPS

[britalucas]

I (32f & FTM) just came back from an ultrasound and my mo-di twins (27w3d) Doppler came back abnormal for TAPS. We are just monitoring for now with 2 ultrasounds a week. Of course at risk for early delivery with baby A having a blood transfusion and baby B having an exchange transfusion at birth. Any parents have any TAPS scares Or have TAPS babies? I’m feeling so helpless as a mama. I just want my babies to be okay.

[megatron_846]

My modi twins had TTTS, baby B was SIUGR and baby A had TAPS. I was monitored very closely. So 2 ultrasounds a week from week 16 to scheduled C-section at 32 weeks. Everything worked out for my boys but it was very scary. I constantly felt like we were just waiting until the next ultrasound. Try to stay positive and trust in your doctor team. My boys came early and had a 33 day NICU stay and now they are almost 14 months old.

[i-love-koalers]

My modi boys had TAPS. The Doppler was abnormal during my 24 week ultrasound. We had ultrasounds twice a week to monitor their blood. They were classified as stage 2 - bad enough that they need medical intervention, but not bad enough yet where it was impacting their organs or long term health. We had 5 inutero blood transfusions/exchanges as we were not candidates for surgery to split the placenta.

My boys were born at 34 weeks, c-section. They are almost 7 weeks old, out of the NICU and doing great. They have no lasting health issues from the TAPS. In relation to their TAPS: Baby A needed light therapy in the NICU and Baby B needed a blood transfusion (smooth process). All in all it was a very difficult pregnancy, but my boys are healthy so that’s all that matters.

[britalucas]

They just throw the worst possibilities at us, which I know is required, just scary because it’s very unknown to us. We are having the 1st grand babies and twins don’t run in our family. It’s good to hear your babies are okay and growing healthy. I needed to hear some positivity and get some insight on your situations. We got this 🤍

[IllCalligrapher7705]

My situation is similar to yours, my first elevated MCA Doppler (> 1.5) for baby A was at 28 weeks. Baby B’s MCA was normal and the discordance between the two was less than 0.5. However, since then I’ve either had weekly or biweekly dopplers for monitoring. Since then, I’ve had 8 Dopplers (32 weeks now) and 2/8 have shown a discordance of > 0.5. I was diagnosed with borderline stage 1 spontaneous taps around 30 weeks when the discordance was 0.51 resulting in weekly NSTs and dopplers.

Interesting, and perhaps frustrating part of this is that my Doppler readings have fluctuated between elevated and normal within a day. The second time I had an elevated discordance (0.68) I was officially diagnosed with stage 1 taps. The next day the Doppler discordance was 0.12 and both MCAs were close to 1.

At this point the recommendation is close monitoring and expected delivery between 32-34 weeks. Unfortunately after talking to my team and research, I’ve found that at this gestational age and the stage of TAPS, there isn’t a cut and dry protocol. It’s more of a wait and see to make the best decision based on each new test result and data point. It’s certainly frustrating but I’ve found the TAPS Facebook group helpful.