In 2002, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) proposed the 3-Tier fetal heart rate (FHR) classification system that was subsequently adopted by many organizations, categorizing tracings into three groups: Category I (normal), Category II (indeterminate), and Category III (abnormal). Recently, our podcast team received an interesting question form one of our podcast family members: “If there is a change in the fetal heart rate tracing intrapartum, but it is still in the normal range (like 120 going to 150)- and variability is normal, is that an abnormality? And what is meant by a ‘ZigZag’ FHT pattern (different than marked variability)?”. That is a fantastically complex question…and we will explain the answer in this episode.

1. Zullo F, Di Mascio D, Raghuraman N, Wagner S, Brunelli R, Giancotti A, Mendez-Figu ...