Management of threatened abortion with real-time sonography

Real-time sonography was used to evaluate 158 patients with threatened abortion. Fetal motion was first detected during the seventh gestational week and with increasing frequency thereafter in 73 patients with viable pregnancies continuing to term. Only 2 of 65 patients who aborted demonstrated fetal motion. The presence or absence of fetal motion was most reliable after 7 weeks' gestation for establishing a prognosis for a given pregnancy. Seventy-two of 74 pregnancies with fetal motion continued to term, whereas 63 of 64 pregnancies without fetal motion aborted. A method for using real-time sonography in the management of threatened abortion is presented.