The importance of a scoring system for positive contraction stress tests.
A scoring system based on the basal fetal heart rate (FHR), accelerations, decelerations, and amplitude and frequency of variation was developed to evaluate positive contraction stress tests more accurately. Retrospective analysis and scoring was carried out on 149 patients who had had positive contraction stress tests (repeated late decelerations during spontaneous or induced uterine contractions). Five-minute Apgar scores were low in 35% of patients with low FHR scores but in only 18% when the FHR score was not low (P less than 0,05). When the FHR score was low 66% of neonates were growth-retarded, as opposed to 38% when the score was not low (P less than 0,01). The prevalence of intra-uterine growth retardation decreased as the FHR score improved. A wider fluctuation of subscores for each 5-minute period was associated with better fetal outcome than in patients who had fixed subscores. FHR scores below 4 were associated with high fetal mortality and prevalence of growth retardation.
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D005316:Fetal Distress / Q000175:diagnosis; D005317:Fetal Growth Retardation / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D005318:Fetal Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D005323:Fetal Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014590:Uterine Contraction