Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring Can Help Health Workers

To get the most accurate reading, put your finger over your pulse and count the number of beats in 60 seconds. Your resting heart rate is the heart pumping the lowest amount of blood you need because you’re not exercising. If you’re sitting or lying and you’re calm, relax and aren’t ill, your heart rate is normally between 60 (beats per minute) and 100 (beats per minute).
But a heart rate lower than 60 doesn’t necessarily signal a medical problem. It could be the result of taking a drug such as a beta blocker. A lower heart rate is also common for people who get a lot of physical activity or are very athletic. Active people often have a lower resting heart rate (as low as 40) because their heart muscle is in better condition and doesn’t need to work as hard to maintain a steady beat. A low or moderate amount of physical activity doesn’t usually change the resting pulse much.

If you’re on a beta blocker to decrease your heart rate (and lower blood pressure) or to control an abnormal rhythm (arrhythmia), your doctor may ask you to monitor and log your heart rate. Keeping tabs on your heart rate can help your doctor determine whether to change the dosage or switch to a different medication.

Unexplained fast heart rates

If your pulse is very low or if you have frequent episodes of unexplained fast heart rates; so especially if they cause you to feel weak or dizzy or faint; so tell your doctor, who can decide if it’s an emergency. Your pulse is one tool to help get a picture of your health. Traditionally, health workers in low-resource countries have use a “fetoscope” to auscultate fetal heart rate. This is the most use tool but can difficult in crowd maternity wards with a high patient/health worker ratio.
This PhD is part of the Safer Births innovation and research project; also the studies were conduct at Haydom Lutheran Hospital in rural Tanzania using mix methods. Two randomize trials are conduct; first testing fetoscope against hand held Doppler, then fetoscope against Moyo (a new continuous fetal heart rate monitor develop by Laerdal Global Health).
There were no significant differences between fetoscope and hand held Doppler; however, focus group discussions reveal that health workers prefer the fetoscope; so thus fetoscope was test against Moyo in the subsequent trial. Moyo facilitate detection of abnormal fetal heart rate earlier and more often; hence leading to more obstetrical actions and a trend towards improve survival in the Moyo group. Studies power to assess impact on perinatal outcomes are recommended.