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June 16, 2007

Non-stress test

Here's what my non-stress test was like:

I was put in a blue/green vinyl "chair" that had a foot rest that went up and a back that reclined when the nurse hit the foot pedals.   I did not have to disrobe.  I just pulled up my shirt and the nurse put two belts around my abdomen, each with a monitor on it. One monitored the baby's heartbeat. The other monitored UA (which after a few Google searches I'm guessing is an acroynm for Uterine Artery).

There were a couple LED displays on the monitor, one with a heart rate read out and the other for the UA.  The UA seemed to only go up to 10.

Besides these LED displays, the machine spit out a printed display like a stock ticker with a single line spiking up and down depending on activity. Actually there were two lines -- one for the fetal heartrate and the other for the UA.

The nurse also gave me a little handheld thingie with a button on it and told me to press the button each time the baby moved.  My button pressing showed up on the printed read out as little arrows.

The goal was to see spikes of fetal heart rate that went to 160 beats per minute (at least) and then went back down again.  They wanted this to happen three times.

If the baby was not cooperating, we would coerce him into doing so by talking to him, poking at him, etc.

This whole thing didn't take very long.  Maybe 20 minutes tops.

If this test ever detects that there is a problem they would send the patient to the hospital for an ultrasound to make sure things are ok.

Next test is Tuesday at the hospital.  They were super nice over there when I set up the appointment.

June 16, 2007 |

Tags: non-stress test, NST, pregnancy, prenatal testing

Comments

Eva

Well at least one place you are dealing with seems to have it together!

Glad yours went quickly. I know they can take forever with lazy babies.

Posted by: Eva | June 16, 2007 at 09:41 PM

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