How many minutes does fetal monitoring take?

In fact, many pregnant women are worried that the instrument examination will have an impact on the fetus during prenatal check-ups, so they want to know how many minutes the fetal monitoring will take. Generally, fetal monitoring takes twenty minutes, so pregnant women can learn about it. If you have any questions during pregnancy, you can consult your doctor, and you can also learn more about prenatal examinations in your life.

Many mothers feel that some of the examination equipment in the hospital may have adverse effects on the child's development when detecting fetal development, so they are worried that the time taken for each test is too long. This requires mothers to understand the time required for various instruments to test.

Fetal heart monitoring usually takes about twenty minutes at a time. It is mainly used to monitor whether the fetal heart rate is normal when the fetal heart rate cannot be heard with a stethoscope, and to check whether the fetus is suffering from hypoxia in the uterus. Generally, fetal heart rate monitoring should be done around 32 to 36 weeks.

In fact, doing fetal heart monitoring too frequently will have an adverse effect on the development of the fetus, so pregnant women should go to the hospital for this examination once a week. This will minimize the impact on the development of the fetus.

However, we cannot not do it just because we think it is harmful to the fetus. If the fetus is suffering from hypoxia in the uterus, it cannot be observed without a fetal heart monitor. If the fetus is suffering from hypoxia, it may result in the death of the fetus in the uterus, causing great harm to the mothers.

The role of fetal heart rate monitoring

The normal fetal heart rate changes all the time with the different intrauterine environments. Changes in fetal heart rate are a manifestation of the normal regulatory function of the central nervous system and a sign that the baby is in good condition in the uterus.

The mission of fetal heart rate monitoring is to detect fetal abnormalities as early as possible, take effective emergency measures before the fetus suffers irreversible damage, deliver the newborn in time, and avoid injuries that affect its life.

The condition of the fetus in the mother's body can be reflected by monitoring fetal movement and fetal heart rate. After 35 weeks of pregnancy, pregnant women should undergo fetal heart monitoring when they go to the hospital for prenatal check-ups every week. However, this can only monitor during specific periods of time and not as needed, so expectant mothers need to develop the habit of checking fetal movements on their own every day.

Fetal heart rate monitoring is performed using two probes tied to the expectant mother. One probe is tied to the top of the uterus and is a pressure receptor whose main function is to detect the presence and intensity of uterine contractions. The other probe is placed on the fetus' chest or back to measure the fetal heart rate. The screen of the instrument displays corresponding graphics of fetal heart rate and uterine contractions, so expectant mothers can clearly see their baby's heartbeat. There is also another button that the expectant mother can press when she feels the fetal movement, and the machine will automatically record the fetal movement. The fetal heart rate monitor calculates the number of heart beats for each cardiac cycle of the fetus and records it on a graph in sequence to show the baseline variation of the fetal heart rate. Within a certain range, changes in the baseline fetal heart rate indicate that the central autonomic nervous system regulation and cardiac conduction function of the fetal heart have been established, and the fetal heart has a certain reserve capacity.

A fetal heart rate that is too fast or too slow is a sign of a problem, but a generally fast fetal heart rate accompanied by fetal movement does not mean that there is any problem with the fetus. A fetal heart rate that is too slow is often more risky, indicating that the fetus's reserves in the uterus are reduced and it is at risk of ischemia and hypoxia, which requires timely treatment by a doctor.