Facts Concerning the Normal Fetal Heart Rate

Variations of the fetal heart rate (commonly linked with baby’s movement) throughout different periods of the day are quite normal and often rise above one hundred sixty going as high as one hundred eighty to one hundred ninety and are seen as normal. Basically, it’s dependent on many variables. You should understand that it is tied to your own heart rate, as yours goes up, so does baby’s. A serious drop in the rate is almost certainly to take place during night right before the expectant mother lies down to sleep. A normal rate is generally between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and eighty bpm and can vary according to activity level at the time and fetal age. So, you can say that it undergoes constant changes in response to the fetal environment and stimuli.

Sometimes, with normal pregnancies, it is not visible until a fetal pole of up to 4 millimeters in length is seen. Listening for it is more a matter of learning to feel the vibration than really listening to sounds. A normal fetal heart rate is one of the most reassuring sounds mothers-to-be will probably ever hear, since it usually shows that all is well with a developing baby. By approximately 6 weeks of pregnancy, it is visible through an ultrasound. Once it’s detected the risk of miscarriage decreases dramatically.

Early in the pregnancy it’s mainly under the control of arterial chemo receptors and the sympathetic nervous system. By approximately the 5th week of impregnation, it is near the mother’s, i.e. from 80 to 85 beats per minute. It continues to rise until early in the 9th week. Than it reaches around 160 to 200 beats per minute and then decelerates to an average of a 120 to 160 beats per minute by the middle of the gestation. As you can notice, it is much faster in early pregnancy than in later pregnancy. Also, keep in mind that it’s faster that the normal heart rate of a mother-to-be (fetal heartbeat is about twice as fast as a maternal heartbeat).

Recording it is an important part of the antenatal and intra-partum care for the expectant mother. It is an essential parameter in monitoring the condition of the unborn baby. Furthermore, it’s one of very few useful fetal signals which can be monitored noninvasively and in a lot of situations in medical practice the only source of info available. Monitoring it is one way physicians and medical staff determines whether the fetus is in any stress. Usually, an ultrasound instrument, often referred to as a Doppler is used to monitor the fetal heart rate.

There’s a belief that it is different for boys and girls. Some expectant parents believe that girls have a faster heart rate than boys. However, this is not true. So, keep in mind that the fetal heart rate isn’t predictive of the gender.