Recognition of Chronic Hypoxia and the Preterminal Cardiotocograph

Le résumé fourni par la source

Placental insufficiency is the most common pathophysiological mechanism of reduced fetal growth, called fetal growth restriction (FGR), and dependong on the time of diagnosis, it is classified as early-onset (<32 weeks) and late-onset (>32 weeks). Two tools are used to determine time of birth to avoid intrauterine death and to minimize the risk of iatrogenic prematurity. Those tools assess the fetal high-priority central organs: the brain and the heart. The brain is assessed using the computerized CTG, which attempts to determine the short-term variation (STV), and the heart is assessed by ultrasound with Doppler examination to fetal blood flow indices to analyse several waveforms, and ‘Ductus Venosus A wave’ being a marker of fetal cardiac function. A fetus presenting in the antenatal period or during early labour with an increased baseline FHR, reduced variability with or without shallow decelerations, has already been exposed to a chronic intrauterine hypoxic environment and has exhausted the compensatory responses to withstand any further hypoxic stress. Therefore, such a fetus is not fit for labour.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.