CTG monitoring machine

[4658Lou]

Does anyone know more information about these CTG monitoring machines I know it measures the heartbeat, and you are given a clicker to push every time you feel a movement, the midwife actually said if you don’t push the clicker it still records the movements it’s to see if you can feel it. they can tell when the baby is asleep and not moving on the chart and if it doesn’t record anything the ‘criteria isn’t met’ and will be repeated. This happened to me heartbeat fine it was the movements as the baby was sleeping it was repeated and ok but I’m just questioning this test.

does anyone know what this criteria is based on like apparently these ctg monitors monitors for 20 minutes and up to a max of 60 minutes how many kicks does the baby have to do?

There are lots of things the criteria is made up of, including accelerations and de-celerations in heart rate, average heart rate, variability in heart rate, lost beats and I can't remember the rest but it's looking at a lot in the heart rate pattern. I believe if no movements are felt by mother (i.e. the button isn't pushed) it looks for a minimum amount of accelerations in heart rate instead to be able to pass the criteria. The machine first checks for passing criteria at 10 mins and will then check every 2 mins after up to 60 mins. It's quite complex. But usually a midwife can tell whether the graphs look 'nice' or not even before criteria is met, and can usually tell what last thing it's waiting for for criteria to be met. I believe the machine also takes into account the gestation and applies it to the criteria that needs to be met.

Just info coming from someone who had to be monitored every other day for over two weeks during third trimester.

It's called the Dawes Redman criteria if you wanted to look more into it.

@Sagittarius25 thank you for that information that’s informative. When mine had to be done again the midwife said heartbeat its fine it just looked like the baby was sleeping and wasn’t moving about as much and isn’t meeting criteria but then on last few minutes the baby started moving and then passed it so I was wondering was the amount of movement they need to see before it’s been met as that’s what they seemed to be waiting on with mine?

Yes so it will have been looking for accelerations (heart rate usually accelerates when baby moves). I remember on one of mine I had been in it for over 30 mins and midwife was saying graph looked lovely it was just waiting for baby to get 'excited'. Then he started doing some moving and heart rate accelerated and it then passed. So yes sounds like yours was just waiting for baby to move around.

It’s not just about the kicks, I had so many during mine, mine failed mostly due to not enough accelerations, so it’s supposed to go up and down and mine 9/10 didn’t meet criteria. At one point though even the midwives didn’t understand because it looked fine visually but it just didn’t quite meet the criteria during the first 60 minutes even after feeling him move quite a bit, then 10 minutes later it met on the second attempt when he didn’t fancy moving which made me realise it wasn’t how many time I was pressing the clicker, although that helped me to realise how much he was moving.

@Blue2020 did they explain why it was failing/not accelerating? Did you have to deliver early because of it. I am trying to make sense of my caesarean 😭

@Blue2020 there was no explanation all it was - was baby being asleep it happened for no reason other than that they just try again and it passed the criteria so it can just happen because of nothing that’s why they try again. I didn’t have to have c section because of that x

Sorry I meant to tag the above reply to @Mimi2022

There's two different probes, one for the babies heartbeat and one for movements and contractions. You also have the clicker. No idea what the criteria are tbh, I only had one CTG so far and baby luckily passed very quickly (was only on monitor for 15 mins and passed within about 7 mins) baby did lose his shit though and managed to roll and kick enough to dislodge the probes 😂

There’s no nationally specified number of movements/kicks needed. Local hospitals may have something specific in their hospital guidelines.

Not all hospitals use Dawes Redman criteria, it’s actually trade marked for a certain brand of ctg machines and is a machine which can classify an antenatal as normal or abnormal. For Dawes redman one of the criteria just says there must have been “movement”….doesn’t specify how much.

a lot of hospitals will just have staff visually assessing the trace. As well as move,ent there needs to be accelerations, no decelerations, base line within normal range and good variability.

movement needs to be recorded by the woman clicking the button. Any movement picked up by the TOCO transducers should be discounted as it’s not reliable. It can record due to movement by the woman, talking, etc.

@4658Lou I had to redo the ctg because it failed first time. Heartbeat was fine no decelerations but there weren’t accelerations and it failed twice and they recommended early delivery

@Mimi2022 ah ok that’s why then. Mine never failed twice it passed after first fail within a few minutes they never mentioned anything about this only that it’s very common that’s why they attempt it again. Of course if they think best to have baby out better to be that way :) I had a early c section too at 37 weeks but mine was because of having preeclampsia from 36 weeks so within a week I had a section