NONSTRESS TESTING AND PERINATAL OUTCOME

  • 1 January 1980
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 24  (5) , 191-196
Abstract
The clinical value of nonstress testing (NST) in assessing fetal well-being is controversial. Monitored tracings and subsequent perinatal outcome of 561 high risk clinic patients who underwent NST within 1 wk prior to delivery were reviewed. Two or more adequate accelerations of the fetal heart rate baseline with sufficient fetal activity over 20 min were associated with a low risk of fetal jeopardy and were classified as a reactive test result. Corrected perinatal mortality of patients with reactive NST (1/509) was comparable to that of patients with no apparent antepartum complications (6/1408) and was significantly lower (P < 0.05) than those of high risk patients with nonreactive NST (2/22) or no testing (20/1000). Incidence of subsequent perinatal jeopardy was significantly lower (P < 0.001) among those high risk pregnancies with recent reactive NST results (4%) than in those with recent nonreactive NST results (36%) and those without recent testing (13%). Perinatal morbidity among those pregnancies with recent reactive NST usually arose in the intrapartum period, and no reason to explain this jeopardy predominated. A reactive NST can be safely repeated in 7 days, regardless of the adequately treated maternal risk factor. The only stillbirth following a reactive NST (1/509) probably arose from a cord accident.