The Neonatal Outcomes in Women with Non-Reactive Cardiotocography

Abstract

Objective: To determine the neonatal outcomes in women with non-reactive cardiotocography (CTG).Methodology: This prospective observational study was conducted at Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics in Chiniot General Hospital, Karachi. Consecutive women of age between 20 to 35 years presented to labour room with non-reactive CTG were included in this study. Non-reactive CTG was defined as per the FIGO criteria of fetal tachycardia> 150bpm, fetal Bradycardia < 110, Reduce or absent beat to beat variability, late deceleration & extreme variable deceleration. During the hospitalization neonatal Apgar score, color of liquor, neonatal death, and need for admission in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) were recorded. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. Mann-Whitney test and Chi-Square test were applied and p-value ≤ 0.05 was taken as criteria for statistical significance.
Results: A total of 122 women were enrolled, mean ± standard deviation of age was 25.8±3.75 years with average gestational age of 38.24± 1.41 weeks. Satisfactory Apgar score was found in 109(89.3%) patients, meconium stained liquor was found in 43(35.2%) babies, need of NICU admission was observed in 38(31.1%) babies and five neonates died i.e.4.1%.
Conclusion: CTG was found to be helpful in monitoring and evaluating the state of a fetus that is in danger. With the satisfactory Apgar score in majority of patients, it is important to build up a consistent and clear-cut description of FHR tracing to decrease the occurrence of bogus positive results that may produce an elevated percentage of needless intervention principally caesarean section.