ί ιPα983H75" Diagnosis of fetal jeopardy by assessment of fetal movement and heart rate accelerations*

Normal fetal activity in utero is an expression of fetal well being [1, 6, 7, 9, 11]. Thus the assessment of fetal movements by the pregnant women is useful in monitoring fetal condition in pregnancy [1, 10, 11]. Decreased fetal activity is considered to be an expression of fetal distress and possibly impending death [1, 5, 7, 9]. The subjective assessment of fetal movements for diagnosing chronic fetal distress, in low or high risk pregnant women is universally available and applicable to large numbers of patients. As there is a considerable rate of false positives, it seems that an additional test is needed. The significance and importance of accelerations of the fetal heart as a prognostic sign have been pointed out by several authors [2,3,4, 8]. In the present study pregnant women are primarily screened by fetal activity. Whenever fetal jeopardy is recognized by reduced fetal movements, it is verified by fetal heart rate testing. The value of that two-step screening procedure is retrospectively tested in relation to perinatal outcome.