Monitoring of fetal biomechanics during apnea in a pregnant woman as a method of prenatal screening

Most of the articles on fetal movements used today to assess its health relate to the daily biomechanics of the fetus in the absence of voluntary respiratory retention (apnea) in the mother. Therefore, the dominant information about the perceived strength, frequency and nature of fetal movements in late pregnancy is not used to assess the resistance of her fetus to periods of hypoxia that it will experience during vaginal delivery. The article analyzes a review of scientific articles and inventions devoted to the dynamics of fetal movements during voluntary respiratory retention of the mother and aquarium fish during artificial acute hypoxia. The analogy of the biomechanics of the fetus and aquarium fish in the corresponding models of artificial acute hypoxia is shown, taking into account their high and low resistance to hypoxia. It is reported that the presence of reserves of adaptation of aquarium fish and fruits to acute hypoxia is manifested by their complete absence of movements. It has been established that their adaptation and resistance to hypoxia are the higher the longer their period of immobility during acute hypoxia persists. It was found that the period of immobility of the fetus with maternal apnea lasting 30 seconds or more indicates a good resistance of the fetus to intrauterine hypoxia and its readiness to withstand periods of hypoxia awaiting it during vaginal delivery. In turn, the period of immobility of the fetus with maternal apnea lasting less than 10 seconds indicates an excessively low resistance of the fetus to hypoxia and an increased likelihood of stillbirth and/ or encephalopathy with increasing gestation and in the case of delivery by vaginal delivery. It has been shown that with excessively low fetal resistance to hypoxia, a Cesarean section should be planned to prevent stillbirth and perinatal encephalopathy. The review showed that awareness of pregnant women and doctors about fetal biomechanics during maternal apnea can potentially reduce the incidence of stillbirths and encephalopathy in newborns. The essence of the inventions devoted to the assessment of fetal resistance to hypoxia, based on monitoring the biomechanics of the fetus with voluntary respiratory arrest of the mother, is presented.