Fetal heart rate patterns in patients with intrauterine growth retardation.

Fetal heart rate recordings were examined in 953 patients with special reference to the different patterns occurring during labor. After delivery the infants were examined with special emphasis on evidence of growth retardation, defined as birthweight below the 10th percentile for the gestational age. Heart rate patterns of growth-retarded infants were compared with those of normal newborns. A statistically significant increase in early, late, and variable decelerations was noted in infants with growth retardation. The difference in loss of beat-to-beat variation was not statistically significant. Also, as might have been expected, low Apgar scores were found more frequently in the small-for-gestational-age infants.