Heart Sounds | Monitoring of heart sounds and contractions

Heart Sounds

The heart rate of the unborn child is determined during a cardiotocogram (CTG) with the help of the child’s heart sounds. This is done technically using a Doppler ultrasound, from which a signal is emitted and the time is measured until the signal is reflected by the child’s heart and returned to the sensor. From the time difference it can then be calculated how fast the child’s heart activity is currently.

The measuring sensor is usually a special microphone, also known as a Doppler ultrasound transducer. The advantage of this method is certainly that a “live” monitoring of the child from the outside can be carried out by a completely non-invasive procedure. However, due to the indirect measurement, the procedure as a whole is also particularly susceptible to the smallest disturbances, such as movements of the child or the mother.

Therefore, it is important to perform a CTG examination continuously for at least half an hour in order to obtain a meaningful overall view. Ideally, the mother should also lie as still and relaxed as possible and not move much during the examination.Overall, however, the contraceptive pen is a very good examination method with which the still unborn child can be monitored from the outside relatively easily and completely painlessly.