Birth Small Talk

Talking about birth

IA

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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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What about CTG monitoring for VBAC?

One of the questions I am often asked about is what research says is the best approach to fetal heart rate monitoring for a woman who has previously had one (or possibly more) caesarean births in the past and plans a vaginal birth this time around. There is no simple answer to this question, so it is one I have avoided writing about. Up until now. A new piece of […]

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Mysterious cats and CTG monitoring

Early last year I wrote a post about Dr Who and alternative universes, highlighting the way that people make meaning of their individual experiences. For those of us who are health practitioners, it is important to reflect on the way we make meaning because it is easy to slip into what are known as cognitive biases. We can’t always avoid these, but it does help to have examples of such […]

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