Reduced fetal movements

Reduced Fetal Movements

Maternal awareness of fetal movements serves as an indicator of fetal wellbeing and its reduction alerts clinicians to pregnancies at risk of complications. A reduction of fetal movements (FM) causes concern and anxiety, both for the mother and obstetrician, and is a common reason for referral to hospital. Decreased fetal movements affect up to 15% of pregnancies (Sergent et al., 2005; Heazell ...

Reduced fetal movements

The association between a reduction in fetal movements (RFM) and stillbirth has been noted for at least 450 years. This was formalised from the 1970s onwards in a series of studies that noted the increased incidence of stillbirth and FGR in women presenting with RFM, which in some cases preceded intrauterine fetal death by several days. Interpretation of the literature relating RFM to stillbirt...

Reduced Fetal Movements

Perinatal outcomes of reduced fetal movements: a cohort study

BACKGROUND The perception of reduced fetal movement (RFM) is an important marker of fetal wellbeing and is associated with poor perinatal outcome (such as intra-uterine death). METHODS We conducted a prospective study of women presenting with RFM over 28 weeks' gestation to a tertiary-level maternity hospital. We examined pregnancy outcomes and compared them to a retrospectively collected con...

Women’s and clinicians perspectives of presentation with reduced fetal movements: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND Worldwide maternal perception of fetal movements has been used for many years to evaluate fetal wellbeing. It is intuitively regarded as an expression of fetal well-being as pregnancies in which women consistently report regular fetal movements have very low morbidity and mortality. Conversely, maternal perception of reduced fetal movements is associated with adverse pregnancy outcom...