A New Definition of the Nonstress Test

Preterm Nonstress Testing

“…5,6 No studies have examined use of the 10-beat modification specifically for preterm pregnancies; however, some older studies in term or near-term pregnancies performed before adoption of the 15ϫ15-beat criterion used varying thresholds, including 10-beat, without differences in perinatal outcomes. [7][8][9] Despite a lack of comparative study, the 10-beat criterion has been accepted as reactive for gestational age less than 32 weeks. 10 The primary purposes of this study were to determine whether preterm NSTs are associated with perinatal outcome and whether interpretation using the 10ϫ10 criterion is equivalent to the 15ϫ15 criterion.…”