Drop in baby's heart rate... Anyone else had this?

[Monix]

Hi ladies

On Tuesday I had a fall pretty much straight to my belly so my midwife suggested I go to the hospital to make sure everything was ok. They sent me to labor & delivery and checked everything (fetal doppler, my vitals, 4 blood tests & an ultrasound) and everything came back totally fine except the heart rate seems strange...

The nurse said she needed to listen & count for 2 full minutes (which took 5 minutes because baby kept moving) and it clearly slowed down for maybe 10-20 seconds & I saw the nurse look at the Doppler screen.

When I got discharged they gave me the results to take to my midwife and in the findings it said "...FH 141 on admission w doppler @ bedside. 1 short decel to 110 noted over 5 minutes...."

110 seems pretty slow to me. Would that make anyone else worry?? That happened on Tuesday and I'm still thinking about it 3 days later so I was hoping someone could reassure or give me some advice.

Thank you!!!

 

[gemstone]

No advice Hun. Didn't want to read & run. Hope all is ok. Maybe give the mw a call see if she has any answers. All the best hunny

 

[BrandiCanucks]

I was further along when my son's decels started. A week before his due date I had an NST and he deceled for minutes at a time to 102 before coming back up. They said it was fine but all was not fine. When I went into labour a week later, his cord prolapsed and I needed an emergency c-section. He almost died. Who knows how long before that he was deceling. His decels were caused by him coming down and crushing the cord.

Demand an ultrasound. That is the only way to know for sure. Dopplers can only tell you that your baby has a heartbeat, not if something else is wrong.

 

[Monix]

Wow good to know!! Thank you!! I have an appointment on Wednesday I'll make sure they figure it out! Thank you!!!

 

[MemmaJ]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you said they'd done a scan and everything was ok..?

Decelerations can actually be quite common/normal before 28 weeks, and baby's heart rate is usually slightly higher before 28 weeks than it will be later in pregnancy also. It's to do with the formation of the nervous system and how they use it, and is why CTG monitoring/tracing isn't (or shouldn't be) used before 28 weeks; because what's ''abnormal' on the interpretation of them (e.g. Decels), can be common/normal before 28 weeks.
It sounds like it was just one in that whole five minutes, so sounds like a 'normal' occasional, short pre-28 week decel - not frequent ones and not a prolonged one. I'm sure they wouldn't have let you go and would have investigated further if they thought it was anything outside of that scope/abnormal