Horrible experience at triage & fetal heart rate high.

[Catk34]

I’m 37+1 weeks today and phoned my local maternity unit due to reduced movement. They couldn’t see me as they didn’t have enough staff so I had to go further away to the next closest maternity hospital.

Firstly, I get to triage and the midwife seemed quite a no nonsense type. She asked me if I’ve been in before for reduced movement and I said yes, twice before as the baby seems to have these quiet days. She glared at me and said ‘well that’s just a pattern then isn’t it?’
I didnt really know what to say, I’ve never had a baby before and have really struggled to notice any pattern to this baby’s movements.
Anyway, she puts the straps on and leaves me attached to the machine. Within less than a minute an alarm starts beeping. It took me a
while to realise that the alarm was coming from the machine I was hooked up to. I turned to look and a yellow box which said ‘fetal heart rate high’ along with a heart rate of between 180-190bpm. I waited for someone to come and respond to this alarm but after 5 minutes nobody had turned up and I was getting quite stressed as to why the heart rate was so high.
I ended up pressing the buzzer they gave me if I needed someone. So now 2 alarms were going off at the same time…but still nobody showed up. Several minutes later someone finally came along, she turned off the alarm and just said ‘babies having a party in there’ then left.
2 minutes later the alarm is going off again and heart rate is back up around 180. Someone came quicker this time and switch off the alarm again. Then after another 5 minutes it went off again. Different midwife came along to switch it off and made the same comment ‘baby’s having a party’ (I don’t know what that even means)

Eventually original midwife comes back, looks at the trace in silence for a few minutes before saying everything looks fine and sent me on my way, whilst making some comment about how they are really busy today (I felt that ‘you’re wasting our time’ is what was being implied by that comment)

Anyway, my question is - can anyone on here explain the reason for the heart rate going up so high in slightly more detail other than ‘baby is having a party’ because I think I’ve left more worried than when I went in and I don’t dare call back after how they made me feel.

This is terrible! They always drum it into is that if you are worried about movements you must be seen! You did nothing wrong and this midwife should find another profession.

I haven't had experience of a high heart rate but you could try searching mumsnet for previous posts. I found that helpful with pregnancy worries. I THINK (from my own heart) that it's only if it's consistently high that it's considered tachycardia. But don't take my word for it and don't be afraid to get further advice because of this horrible person.

That's terrible you were made to feel that way. Never feel like you can't go in, especially for movements. If you feel that way again, please don't let this experience deter you from going in!

It's impossible to say without having seen the trace.. but if the baby was moving a lot their heart rate would accelerate. This is a good and normal response to movement. It doesn't stay elevated, it sort of peaks and settles back to a baseline again. The problem is that the monitors are set to alarm if it goes above 160bpm.. so if a baby has a big acceleration the monitor can't tell the difference between a high baseline (not normal) and an acceleration (very much normal and reassuring), so the alarm sounds. I am purely speculating but if no one came rushing in and they subsequently let you home then I would imagine that's what was happening. This does often happen and would explain the 'having a party in there' comments.

You could always ring back and ask for clarity to put your mind at ease. As I said I am only making a guess! Staff should never make you feel like a burden for them being short staffed so just forget about that and don't let it dictate your actions, staffing is not your problem. Your baby is the most important thing in the world to you😊

ah man I think being a ftm is hard as you don’t know what’s normal and uncertainty can cause anxiety.

Similar happened to me at 28 weeks. My dd HR was 180-200, nobody seemed that bothered. A dr then said they thought my waters had broken and I was kept in. I developed profuse green discharge. They scanned and said waters looked fine, that I likely had thrush and sent me home. The swab came back as strep b but they said no need to treat as I was booked for a c section at 38 weeks ? I had issues on and off then when I had my section they told me the membranes were ragged and dd had to go to nicu as had a temperature and needed antibiotics

Thank you so much for this response that’s put my mind at ease!
That makes sense what you said as the heart rate was elevated when baby was moving.

The baby did decide to move a lot as soon as I was attached to the machine! (Typical) but the midwife had also done the straps up really tight across the bump and perhaps baby didn’t like that much and started wriggling because of that.

Now my main worry is if I end up having to go there to give birth and get that same midwife!! 😣

I am sorry you have had this experience today. The midwife sounds awful. I can't answer your question about high foetal heart rate, I'm afraid.

What I do want to do is encourage you to give yourself permission to ask questions and be assertive when dealing with health care professionals in connection with your baby. I say this because when I was in labour, I was in pain despite an epidural. I asked the midwife if she could ask for the anesthetist to come back. She did come back, and was patronising when I said I was still in pain. It took more effort than it should have done to get her to agree to give me a second epidural. (Other than that, a positive experience with a wonderful midwife.)

Its so frustrating that a 20 second explanation from them could have put your mind at ease. They need to do better at explaining and recognise that their every day experiences are often so foreign to the women in their care. Like I said don't be afraid to ring and say it has been playing on your mind if you think an explanation directly from them might help. Also echo what PP said about asking all the questions. I will never let anyone dismiss me again if I am lucky enough to have another baby. I didn't speak up and it lead to so many worries.

Former NHS Midwife here (left mainly due to the battleaxe Midwives you describe! ) and longtime Mumsnet lurker but finally made a profile to reply to this thread. Its really hard without seeing your CTG trace but it is normal for baby's heart rate to accelerate during periods of movement and that would be a reassuing feature. However it is not normal if the baseline heart rate (overall) is over 160bpm. At the trust I used to work at, the CTG would need to meet certain criteria (Dawes Redman) before we would remove the trace. If you're anything like me you will probably worry if you don't know so I wouldn't hesistate to call the assessmemt unit and explain you're anxious and would like to know what the baseline was and that the criteria was met. And definitely call back if you have any worries about movements again. Best wishes for your upcoming arrival! Xx

Don’t let a midwife’s bad attitude ever put you off from having you and your baby checked over! And very unlikely you will ever bump into her again
I went in once with each pregnancy for reduced movements and was told heart rate increases with activity and then decreases, at our trust they also give you a button to press when you feel movement and then this often shows the pattern of a pressed button- movement - HR increase if that makes sense?

I'd send this as a complaint via pals tbh op awful awful response. Women are meant to feel comfortable to get checked for reduce movement and this kind of stance puts them off. If your hdd as you go back to your original midwife centre and get seen again. Please do not let this out you off being checked over for worries of reduced movement

Also how dare she say they're busy to suggest you shouldn't be there 🤬🤬

Literally had this very experience last week.. went in with reduced movements and was kept over night had 4 traces with a high heart rate (from Friday to the Monday ) and they couldn’t determine the base line was prepped for a emergency c section the Saturday night and then decided to change there mind and blame it on the couple of sips of coke I had while on the tracing , they then moved my original c section date a week forward to the Monday (38+1) and obviously was fasting for it and again the trace that morning was the same (so couldn’t of been the sugar) I don’t know what caused it but baby is okay though 🥺

I went in at 37 weeks dead on wit reduced movements, which also happened to be my third time in. Thankfully after being told all was alright, they had a training midwife and I was asked of I wanted an internal to see if things were moving in the right direction. Turns out I was over 5cm dilated and gave birth less than an hour and half later. All very quick and unexpected.

I was reassured by 3 different midwives and a consultant before the internal, that I did the right thing by coming in if unsure. That they were there to help and that it was important to follow your instincts.

If it happens again, please make use you go in. Better safe than sorry as they say.