NST: Remind me!

[GinaRae]

It's been years since I had those. Remind me what happens...

All I remember is them taking vitals and using external fetal monitoring to run a strip for the baby's vitals and contractions.

[Ackray]

They take your vital signs. They hook you up to an external monitor. And they watch how the baby's heart fluctuates and reacts to fetal movement and contractions (if you are having any). They want to see fetal heart rate accelerations in response to movement and good variability. It usually takes about 20 minutes.

[Isaac'sMa]

I also remember having a little joystick type thing to hold with a button on the end of it. I had to push the button every time I felt a contraction.

They like the baby to be active so try to drink some juice before you go.

[maisiedotes]

I had mine today- they put little doppler type things on me and monitored me for contractions, baby movement and her heartbeat. They didn't take my vitals at all... they did want 2 spikes in the baby's heartbeat and since I could not hold my breakfast down, she did not have the spikes. They had me eat a bagel and drink some apple juice and she started moving around like crazy. Thank goodness.

ETA: I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night realizing they DID take my blood pressure. I was yakking away with the nurse and I didn't even realize they were doing it!

[LittleLlama]

DS was sich a PITA about the NST's!!! HE'd get as far from the sensors as possible and in order to get enough data, I'd have to be in there for well over an hour nearly falling asleep, pressing the button but getting woken up by the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep of the thing telling me it wasn't picking up a heartbeat so I'd have to move the sensors around till I could "catch" DS with it.