Fetal breathing: its physiologic and clinical implications.

The respiratory movements the human fetus makes in utero can be detected and used as a valuable aid in determining fetal well-being. Their presence or absence, amplitude, and duration can all provide important information. Their absence, however, does not carry a poor prognosis unless other indices of fetal status, such as the nonstress test and oxytocin-challenge contraction-stress test, are also abnormal at the same time.