Vibroacoustic stimulation - does it really help?
One of the major objectives of perinatal medicine is to look for better means of testing for fetal well-being in utero. This prospectively study measured the antenatal fetal heart rate changes in response to fetal acoustic stimulation using artificial electronic larynx (Model 5C) in two groups of patients. In Group A, consisting of 80 low risk patients selected from the antenatal clinic, the acoustic stimulation resulted in a good response with no perinatal death. In Group B, consisting of 80 high risk patients, only 15 patients (18.7%) showed no response. In these 15 patients, there were two stillbirths and two neonatal deaths. Thirteen of these 15 patients were small for gestational age compared to only eight out of 61 who showed good response to the stimulus. This difference and the findins are statistically significant.
Jamal
H S
HS
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Department of ENT, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Jamal
T S
TS