Biophysical Profile/NST question

mw_sorrel

My doc does a routine bpp/nst at 37 weeks.  I'm sure people have different experiences - but just wondering about how long this takes?

SarahTx5701

a BPP is usually a few minutes they look for 4 things, baby moving,practicing breathing,heartrate, and swallowing maybe? I forget but it can be super quick if baby cooperates.

nst is usually 20 minutes or so. They strap you up to the contraction monitor and heartrate monitor and baby has to meet certain requirements. Mine can go on forever depending on if he meets that. They don't really give him a time limit.

swimming47

I had one of friday and it was about 15 minutes.

audgleigh

I go for NST's on a weekly basis and don't think they are bad...just take a book with you.  Mine always last about 20 mins (LO is super cooperative).  Like PP said if your LO isn't as cooperative, you might be there a lot longer.  The nurses did tell me to make sure to eat before I went in because it will make LO more active, making the test shorter.

 

Pamela05

If they were just looking for 2 accelerations on my NST I would be out of there in 5 minutes.  The doctors and nurses always laugh because the kid moves nonstop for the entire monitoring period, but they still like to have a record of 15-20 minutes.

My BPP typically take about 15 minutes and then she'll spend several minutes trying to get a good 3D face shot for us.  Then I wait there for a few minutes for the doctor to come in and look at what the tech found and maybe look around some himself.  

daenikoffre

Pamela05:

If they were just looking for 2 accelerations on my NST I would be out of there in 5 minutes.  The doctors and nurses always laugh because the kid moves nonstop for the entire monitoring period, but they still like to have a record of 15-20 minutes.

Same here! And they always ask, "Did you just have coffee or tea?" And I say, "Uhmn.. no.. He's just ALWAYS like this." Then they laugh and say they feel sorry for me! haha

jmcdow

BPP's or Biophysical Profiles have a time limit of 30 minutes.  They look for specific activities mentioned earlier, including fetal breathing motion, if that wasn't mentioned and measure an AFI - amniotic fluid index.  They can be over very quickly as everyone has said, but they are timed for 30 minutes to answer worst case scenerio.  NST's seem to always be 20 minutes of monitoring from what I have seen.  I am a Sonographer BTW.