In medicine (obstetrics), fetal distress is the presence of signs in a pregnant woman—before or during childbirth—that the fetus is not well or is becoming excessively fatigued. Medicine is the branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining human health or restoring it through the treatment of disease and injury. ... Obstetrics (from the Latin obstare, to stand by) is the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (the period shortly after birth). ... Pregnancy Pregnancy is the carrying of one or more embryos or fetuses by female mammals, including humans, inside their bodies. ... Childbirth (also called labour, birth, partus or parturition) is the culmination of a human pregnancy with the emergence of a newborn infant from its mothers uterus. ... Fetus at eight weeks Foetus redirects here. ...

Fetal distress frequently results in more distress for the parents than for the fetus. In modern hospitals the diagnosis generally results in a flurry of remedial activity. Often the mother and her partner can do little but watch on and passively consent to whatever the health professionals are recommending. Attempts to reassure the parents that "everything will be fine" are difficult to accept in the presence of the sudden sense of urgency and crowd of concerned new faces that rapidly arrive in the delivery room. Fortunately for parents in this situation, the anxiety is very short-lived, as a healthy baby is generally delivered and united with its parents. A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ...

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Signs and symptoms of fetal distress include: Part of the Style and how-to series Shortcut: WP:HEP See also Help:Editing, m:Help:Editing, m:Help:Starting_a_new_page Wikipedia is a WikiWiki, which means that anyone can easily edit any unprotected article and have those changes posted immediately to that page. ...

• Decreased movement felt by the mother
• Meconium in the amniotic fluid
• Cardiotocography signs
  • increased or decreased fetal heart rate (tachycardia and bradycardia), especially during and after a contraction
  • decreased variability in the fetal heart rate
• Biochemical signs, assessed by collecting a small sample of baby's blood from a scalp prick through the open cervix in labour
  • fetal acidosis
  • elevated fetal blood lactate levels indicating the baby has a lactic acidosis

Meconium from 12-hour-old newborn — the babys third bowel movement. ... The amniotic sac is a tough but thin transparent pair of membranes which holds a developing embryo (and later fetus) until shortly before birth. ... In medicine (obstetrics) cardiotocography (CTG) is a technical means of recording (-graphy) the fetal heartbeat (cardio-) and the uterine contractions (-toco-) during childbirth. ... Heart rate is a term used to describe the frequency of the cardiac cycle. ... Tachycardia is an abnormally rapid beating of the heart, defined as a resting heart rate of over 100 beats per minute. ... Bradycardia, as applied in adult medicine, is defined as a heart rate of under 60 beats per minute, though it is seldom symptomatic until the rate drops below 50 beat/min [1]. It is also less commonly known as brachycardia. ... In medicine (obstetrics), a contraction is a forceful motion of the uterus, generated by the release of oxytocin (quick labor) by the pituitary gland, culminating in childbirth. ... Heart rate is a term used to describe the frequency of the cardiac cycle. ... Acidosis is an increased acidity (i. ... Lactic acidosis is a condition caused by the buildup of lactic acid in the body. ...

Causes

There are many causes of fetal distress:

• Breathing problems
• Abnormal position and presentation of the fetus
• Multiple births
• Shoulder dystocia
• Prolapsed umbilical cord
• Nuchal cord

For the play Breath by Samuel Beckett, see Breath (play). ... Identical Triplet Sisters Fraternal twin boys in the tub Twins, triplets and other multiple births occur with to varying degrees in most animal species, although the term is most applicable to species in the Placentalia subclass. ... Dystocia (antonym eutocia) is an abnormal or difficult childbirth. ... A Nuchal cord (sometimes also referred to as a Nuchal loop) occurs when the umbilical cord of a fetus becomes wrapped around a part of the fetus, usually the neck. ...

Treatment

In many situations fetal distress will lead the obstetrician to recommend steps to urgently deliver the baby. This can be done by induction, or in more urgent cases, a Caesarean section may be performed. This article needs cleanup. ... Induction is a way of artificially bringing on labour in a woman. ... A caesarean section (cesarean section AE), or C-section, is a form of childbirth in which a surgical incision is made through a mothers abdomen (laparotomy) and uterus (hysterotomy) to deliver one or more babies. ...