[Perinatal results of the patients assessed by fetal hypomotility]

To describe the perinatal outcome of those patients that come to emergency room because of diminished fetal movements.

This is a case series in which we evaluated the patients who were attended at the Maternal Fetal Medicine Department from January 2002 to December 2003. All patients with prenatal control in the institution whatever the basic pathology were enrolled in the study. They were evaluated following the institution protocol. All data was obtained from maternal and neonatal files.

A total of 240 patients with mean age of 27 +/- 7 (SD) years were evaluated in the study. Ninety of them (37%) were primiparous, 66 (27%) secundiparous, and 44 (18%) coursed the third pregnancy. Mean gestational age when they were evaluated for diminished fetal movements was 37.1 +/- 2.5 (SD) weeks. After the evaluation, 195 (81%) patients resulted with a reactive non-stress test, 42 (17%) had a non-reactive stress test with a positive vibroacoustic stimulation test, no patients were found with a non-reactive non-stress test and a negative vibroacoustic stimulation test. In two patients (< 1%) the register showed ominous pattern. In these two preterm cases pregnancy was interrupted. Mean gestational age at birth was 39.1 (+/- 1.7) weeks, and 223 (92.91%) born at term. From the two intervened cases, one had intrauterine growth restriction and the other asphyxia with intraventricular hemorrhage as a consequence.

Hypomotility is one manifestation of the loss of fetal well-being and cannot be ignored because there are some cases in which intervention is needed. A great number of patients without a real risk of asphyxia and with a good perinatal outcome must be evaluated, so we have to look for another mechanism of evaluation for these patients. A clinimetric method could be an intermediary step between clinic and electronic surveillance.