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

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 was chosen as the boundary value for number of fetal movements, NST category 1 was observed in 22 cases (16%) whereas NST category 2 was observed in 7 cases (23%). When ≥ 35 was used as the boundary value, NST category 1 was detected in 20 cases (13%) and NST category 2 was detected in 6 cases (20%). When the boundary value for the number of fetal movements was taken as 16 fetal movements/hour (median value), in group 1 (fetal movement count 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