Birth Small Talk

Fetal monitoring information you can trust

CTG

Cardiotocograph monitoring

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Does CTG monitoring make labour slower?

There is no doubt that standard “wired” CTG monitoring restricts mobility during labour and favours recumbent positions on the bed during labour (Watson, et al., 2022). I often hear people say that this leads to longer labours, contributing to the rise in caesarean section rate seen with CTG monitoring. This post explores the evidence for this from randomised controlled trials comparing intermittent auscultation with continuous CTG monitoring in labour. Labour […]

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I’m taking a break

I’m in the midst of a house move at present. It’s also that time of the year when I like to slow down and reevaluate and set intentions for the next year. So I’m taking a break from publishing new content. You will still see me popping up a recycled post each week on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Mastodon (yay for scheduling software!). I’ll be back on deck at the […]

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Ready for some new insights?

I am speaking at the State of Birth online symposium on 16th October on Myths of cardiotocography and invite you to join us.  The line up is fabulous and I’m looking forward to hearing the other speakers. Dr Rachel Reed of Midwife Thinking blog and the Midwives Cauldron podcast will be talking on the 15th and there is an interesting range of birth professionals involved from different perspectives. The event runs over […]

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Who makes decisions about fetal heart rate monitoring and how does it happen?

Myself and my co-authors have a new paper, freshly published with Women and Birth (available here). One of the questions I asked while generating data from my doctoral research was – who made the decision about the approach to fetal heart rate monitoring that any individual woman would use during her labour? At first glance, the answer seemed to be that no one was actively making decisions. I didn’t interview […]

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