Monitoring of Your Baby in Labor

While you are in labor, the doctor will verify the whole time that the baby is tolerating the process well. Depending on the hospital, and the doctor in charge, it will be decided when to make use of the fetal monitors and which to use. Although some patients under risk might require only sporadic control, in other cases more permanent control is needed. Sometimes it is only possible to see if you need a permanent monitoring when the labor has begun and the doctor is able to see how the baby is responding.

The Fetal Heart
The work of labor constitutes a factor of risk both for the baby and the mother. Monitoring the baby’s heart has as an objective making sure the baby is managing stress well. In some hospitals a routine permanent monitoring is done to all the patients. In others only sporadic controls are done if there is low risk. These controls can be done through several techniques.

External Monitoring
The electronic monitoring of the fetal heart uses two belts or a wide elastic band around the abdomen. Un apparatus that is located under the belts or the elastic band detects the heartbeat of the baby through a technique of Doppler ultrasound. A second apparatus detects contractions by measuring them. An external contraction monitor can indicate the frequency and duration of the contractions but does not give the doctor information on the intensity. An external monitor for the fetal heart provides information about the response of the fetus to the contractions and registers the variations throughout the course, in other words the periodic changes in the heartbeat.

You may hear the doctor refer to the baby’s heartbeat in any of the following ways:

• Normal. Between 120 to 160 beats per minute

• Bradycardia. A decrease in the cardiac rhythm, until reaching under 120 beats per minute and that lasts more than two minutes.

• Tachycardia. An increase in the fetal cardiac rhythm until ending up above 160 beats per minute that lasts more than two minutes.

• Accelerations. This is a brief increase of cardiac rhythm above the base line that many times happens after fetal movement. The accelerations are a good sign.

• Deceleration. These are intermittent decreases below the base lines of the fetal cardiac rhythm. The importance of these decelerations depends on their frequency, on how much the cardiac rhythm falls and when they occur in relation with the contractions. Depending on how they present themselves it can indicate bad adaptation of the baby to the work of labor and in determined occasions are decisive to end up in cesarean.