Electronic Fetal Heart Monitoring
Fetal Heart Monitoring
What Affects the Test
Reasons you may not be able to have the test or why the results may not be helpful include:
- Smoking cigarettes or using other tobacco products and drinking or eating large amounts of caffeine (such as from several cups of strong coffee), which can falsely raise your baby's heart rate.
- Extra noises such as your heartbeat or your stomach rumbling.
- Your baby is sleeping during a nonstress test.
- Problems with the placement of the external monitoring device. These problems may include:
- Your baby is moving a lot during the test.
- You are pregnant with more than one baby, such as twins or triplets.
- You are overweight.
 Go to previous section |  Go to top of page |  Go to next section |
| Author: | Jan Nissl, RN, BS Sydney Youngerman-Cole, RN, BSN, RNC | Last Updated: September 5, 2006 |
| Medical Review: | Tom Bailey, MD - Family Medicine Joy Melnikow, MD, MPH - Family Medicine Kirtly Jones, MD - Obstetrics and Gynecology | |
 | ||
| |
| Topic Contents | |
| Test Overview | |
| Why It Is Done | |
| How To Prepare | |
| How It Is Done | |
| How It Feels | |
| Risks | |
| Results | |
 | What Affects the Test |
| What To Think About | |
| Credits | |