What are the gaps in our knowledge?
My wish list for new research about fetal monitoring in labour. @ProfJennyGamble
CTG
Cardiotocograph monitoring
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 […]
Why might midwives not support choice of fetal monitoring method?
The problem with guidelines is not that they exist nor that they play a role in structuring good practice. The problem is when guidelines over-reach their purpose.
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 […]
It seems we can’t agree on this one….
Whose fault is it when we can’t agree on the CTG? #EFM #CTG #CTGInterpretation #CentralFetalMonitoring
What we don’t know about lactate might be harmful
We really have no idea what we are doing when it comes to fetal blood sampling during labour. Maybe we should stop doing it.
When the CTG is not normal, should you turn on STAN or check the fetal pH?
CTG monitoring is in use during a woman’s labour. The fetal heart rate pattern is now abnormal. As her maternity professional, you know that the positive predictive value of the CTG is low, and want to avoid caesarean section unless it is going to improve the fetal outcome. And you don’t want to misidentify when caesarean section is a great idea and as a result have an avoidable poor outcome […]
Add central fetal monitoring and stir: Is this the solution to understaffing?
What happens when you introduce a central fetal monitoring system into a maternity service who are struggling to provide adequate staffing to maintain safety?
Is that what it really says? When professional guidelines get creative with truth.
We expect that evidence based guidelines are written by people who can critically review and use evidence. Sometimes that’s not what happens though. Here’s an example….
Writing about ideas
Sometimes I like to write about ideas rather than research. Here is a collection of musings that might give you ideas too.
Birth Small Talk 