Basic Technology in Medicine by @shance-light- club75

Hello everyone, hope we are cool. Happy new month to everyone. Today i will be writing about some basic technology in medicine which is called fetoscope.

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A fetoscope is of 2 types. We have a manual foetoscope and a doppler foetoscope. A foetoscope is device that is used to measure the heart rate of a feotus. This is one important device that is useful in our hospital.

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a doppler foetoscope using doppler Ultrasound Technology

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How it is being used

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This device is mostly used in antenatal clinic ANC units where pregnant wonen come for check up and follow up of the progress of their pregnancy.
The main use of this device is to measure the heart rate of a foetus still in the womb. It help the midwife to know if the foetus is progressing ok or has some distress.
This foetal heart rate is calculated per minute

• The midwife or Nurse ask the pregnant woman to lie on a bed in a supine position.
  Her abdomen is then expose
• The nurse or midwife palpates the abdoment to check the foetus position and lie. That is if the baby is cephalic or bridge. For a cephalic foetus, it is easy to get good heart bit sounds than for bridge foetus
• After this palpation, locate the hardest area, which most at times is the back (dorsal region) , this area is mostly used as the heart is located inbetween the chest and the back. If a soft part is to be consider, lets say the buttocks, the wont be any sound heart and this may give a faulty result.
• After locating the position and the hardest part of the foetus through palpation, the lumbricant or gel is poured on the area. This device functions just like other ultrasound devices, it uses the doppler effects to produce quality sound that can be recorded electronically and saved.

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a health practitioner using doppler Ultrasound to get and record foetal heart rate

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Manual foetoscope

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The manual foetoscope can be used but in this case the midwife or nurse counts the foetal heart rate over a period of time that is 1min or 60sec. The Nurse place her ear on one side while the other side is placed on the abdomen and supports the foetoscope and the abdoment with her hands.

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a nurse using manual foetoscope to get foetal heart rate

This method or type has some limitation or factors that may affect it such as a noisy enviroment, pain exerted by the weight of the nurse head, false purse gotten from other source like the fingers holding the foetoscope. Nurse always comes up with waist pain from bending.

Thus technology has come to save alot from all these stress by comming up with doppler foetoscope.

Foetal heart rate ranges and effect

Ranges	Effects
120- 160 beats per min	normal heart rate indicating that the foetus is doing ok
160 and above(tartycardia)	there is foetal distress which may be as a result of cord tie round the neck, maternal infection, fever, malaria or other causes
Below 120 beats per min (bradycardia)	this may be due to shortage of oxygen(hypoxia) or deduction of maternal oxygen.

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Having all these in mind, it is easy to record the values and give an interpretation of to detect the condition of the foetus. Technology still has a vital role in medicine.

Cc
@abu78