Abbreviations Explained

Doctors and midwives use a lot of abbreviations and acronyms because the time spent writing out everything in longhand is time consuming.

Here are a few that you may well come across:

• BP – Blood Pressure
• ↑BP – High Blood Pressure (sometimes also written as “HTN” – short for hypertension)
• CTG – “CardioTocoGraph”. This is the heart tracing that is performed to make sure that your baby is not in trouble
• ↓FM – Reduced Fetal Movements
• FH – Fetal Heart (sometimes written as FHH – fetal heart heard)
• GDM – Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (diabetes which occurs in pregnancy)
• GTT – Glucose Tolerance Test (A test done to check for diabetes in pregnancy)
• IUGR – In-Utero Growth Restriction (This is describing a baby that is not growing well. It is a diagnosis made on scan and is often wrongly used for small babies that are growing normally)
• NAD – Nothing Abnormal Detected
• PET – Pre-Eclampsia (also know as Pre-Eclamptic Toxaemia)
• SROM – Spontaneous Rupture Of Membranes (ie: when your waters have gone)
• VE – Vaginal Examination
• ◦ – If this symbol is written in front of a word it means no. For example “◦ SROM” means that there was no evidence that your waters had broken.