The placenta is an organ that could not be more important for pregnancy. How can the function of the placenta be determined? Does the placenta appear to be calcified during ultrasound examination, which means that it is functionally aged? The placenta is in the shape of a disc, and its mother surface is attached to the myometrial wall, which is usually located in the anterior and posterior walls of the uterine fundus when it is normal. At full term, the placenta is 18-20 cm in diameter, 2-3 cm thick and weighs 500-600 grams, which is about 1/6 of the baby’s weight. What does the placenta do? The placenta really comes into play around the 9th to 10th week of pregnancy, when it first replaces the progesterone released by the ovaries to continue to maintain the pregnancy. The placenta is responsible for transporting nutrients and oxygen to the baby, helping the baby excrete metabolic waste, secreting hormones, and performing immune functions. During pregnancy, the placenta works silently until the end of labor and delivery of the baby, when it is detached from the mother. How to determine the function of the placenta? From this, people will think that the placenta is so amazing, so great and so meritorious – it really is! Next, people will have a concern, how to determine the function of the placenta? At present, from a medical point of view, the function of the placenta can be determined by measuring the hormones secreted by the placenta (such as human placental lactogen, estrogen, etc.), but it is not yet a routine clinical test. As we have mentioned above, the placenta is filled with blood, and there is no good way to determine the placental perfusion directly, but the blood flow of the placenta is often inferred indirectly through the maternal uterine artery flow “in front” and the umbilical artery flow “behind”. The placental blood flow is often indirectly inferred from the maternal uterine artery flow “anterior” and the umbilical artery flow “posterior”. Sometimes, due to placental vascular lesions or trauma, the placenta may be partially or completely detached from the mother before the baby is detached (called placental abruption), which may cause severe blood loss to the fetus and even endanger the life of the mother and fetus. During the prenatal examination, we cannot “touch” the placenta, but we can observe the presence of the placenta through ultrasound to describe the position and shape of the placenta. During the ultrasound examination, the sonographer will describe the placenta as grade I, II and III, or degree I, II and III, depending on the imaging changes in the ultrasound report. Near the full term of pregnancy, the placental echo is approximately grade II (or degree II), and individually it shows grade III (or degree III), indicating that the placenta is gradually maturing. To determine the function of placenta, comprehensive evaluation is needed Clinically, the functional status of placenta can be inferred from the number of fetal movements, amniotic fluid volume, umbilical artery blood flow, fetal growth rate, fetal heart rate, fetal heart monitoring and other aspects. It is not possible to make a sole judgment on the aging or degeneration of placental function or even blindly terminate the pregnancy just by the ultrasound morphology of the placenta. When the placenta morphology appears to be grade II-III (or II-III degree), it is necessary to strengthen prenatal checkups, strengthen fetal monitoring, closely observe the changes in fetal movement, changes in amniotic fluid volume and changes in fetal blood flow, etc., and dynamically assess whether the weight of the fetus matches the number of weeks of gestation. As a pregnant mother should not be overly nervous and anxious, but should follow the doctor’s instructions to go to the maternity checkup on time and count the number of fetal movements carefully, because the change of fetal movement is a sensitive indicator of the condition of the baby in the womb. The mother’s responsibility as a mother begins during pregnancy, as she can only experience and count the fetal movements herself. If the doctor is not comfortable with the intrauterine status of the baby and recommends termination of the pregnancy, it is also important to follow the medical advice of the doctor. Currently, there is no good way to stop the metamorphosis of the placental function. However, on the other hand, good perinatal care, timely detection and treatment of pregnancy complications or complications can, to some extent, improve the function of the placenta, promote blood perfusion to the placenta, and improve the intrauterine gestational environment of the baby for its growth. The changes in placental imaging actually do not yet fully match and coincide with the true functioning of the placenta and do not mean that the placenta is aging. Only in the middle of pregnancy, when the placenta appears to be echogenically inhomogeneous and shows grade II-III (or II-III degree), it is more abnormal in terms of imaging.