“Fetal Distress”: An Epic Tale
Is it time to rethink the concept of “fetal distress”?
Does CTG monitoring cause the fetal heart rate to become abnormal?
The design of the very first RCT about CTG monitoring is interesting, and it raised a question which we really haven’t ever answered fully. Does the use of CTGs create the very problem they are meant to prevent?
What stops clinicians from using intermittent auscultation?
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 intrapartum CTG monitoring. The authors pointed out that: Despite evidence-based guidelines from professional associations recommending IA, and warning against the use of continuous monitoring, healthy individuals in labour are rarely monitored intermittently. The harms of routine EFM use are well established, yet it continues […]
Overdiagnosis and CTG monitoring
Unlike Dr Who, we can’t drop into our future timeline to see what the consequences of our current decisions are. If we could, would we make different choices?
What is intermittent auscultation?
Most high-income countries require maternity clinicians who work with women during labour to attend regular courses on the use and interpretation of CTG monitoring. I’ve been to more than a few during my time – but I have never been to an education session where there was a specific focus on how to use and interpret IA.
The admission CTG: does it improve outcomes?
Today’s post summarises the evidence about the use of admission CTGs.
Fetal movement monitoring and stillbirth prevention: What’s new in research?
Does teaching women to focus on the movements of the fetus prevent stillbirth, or does it create a new set of problems?
Listening to the fetus: the history of fetal heart rate monitoring
The history of maternity care is essentially the story of men trying to make sense of women as a mysterious “other” to men. This is true of the history of fetal heart rate monitoring too.
What is CTG monitoring?
Today’s post takes up back to the basics and discusses what CTG monitoring is (and isn’t).
On Doctor Who and changing the future
I quite like Doctor Who. One of the common threads in the show involves the Doctor warning their companions that it is important not to meddle with the past in a way that might alter the future. Of course, what inevitably happens is that the Doctor and companions end up being compelled take action in order to ensure that everyone arrives at the end of the episode happy and healthy, […]
