Birth Small Talk

Fetal monitoring information you can trust

IA

Comparing continuous CTG use with intermittent CTG use

In some settings, women are offered the option of having intermittent CTG use rather than continuous CTG use. This might look something like having 20 to 30 minutes of CTG use every hour or two, with intermittent auscultation used during the time off the CTG. A first look, this seems like it might be a way to reduce some of the downsides associated with CTG use (like the increased rate […]

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What stops professionals from using intermittent auscultation?

I wrote this post back in February 2020 when this research was new. It’s a paper I often reference and use in my presentations. I’ve refreshed the post and am sharing it again because I think it contains valuable information. Research published this week by Chuey, De Vries, Dal Cin, and Low (2020) explored facilitators and barriers to the use of intermittent auscultation (IA) rather than CTG monitoring during labour. […]

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Reviewing the evidence for Intermittent Auscultation

I was excited to see a new paper, setting out the evidence for intermittent auscultation in labour (Anderson, et al., 2023). It was published in a journal for US based nurse-midwives, so it relates to the context of care in that country. Let’s see how they did in terms of getting the facts right. Is their evidence accurate? They wrote that: All this is correct, except that one of the […]

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