The Role of Fetal Movement Amount on Predicting the Non-stress Test Results

SUMMARY Objective: To find a boundary value for the number of fetal movements in pregnant women gestation week ≥ 32 and to reduce unnecessary nonstress test (NST) applications. Patients: 171 pregnant women gestation week ≥ 32 Material and methods: NST was performed to the pregnant women after their fetal movements were counted within an hour while at rest. NST results (NST category 1-normal, NST category 2-suspicious and NST category 3-abnormal) above and below the boundary value were compared. Findings: When 5 cut-off point for number of fetal movements is used, NST category 1, in 22 cases (16%); NST category 2 in 7 patients (23%), respectively. When cut off ≥ 35 is used, NST category 1 in 20 patients (13%) and NST category 2 in 6 patients (20%) were detected. Limit the number of fetal movement 16 fetal movements / hour is taken (median value) in group 1 (fetal movement count 0.05). Result: No significant differences in NST results were observed between group 1 and group 2. Therefore it is difficult to make a prediction about the reactivity of the NST by considering the number of fetal movements. Fetal movement counts can be misleading. Although not statistically significant, the quantitative tendency makes us think that it is more important to take care of the pregnant women with decreased fetal movement count rather than trusting the excess amount of the fetal movements.