Routine umbilical cord gas analysis – is it worth it?
Routine cord blood gas analysis – harmful or helpful?
Tag Archive for ‘guidelines’
Do bigger women benefit from intrapartum CTG monitoring?
CTG monitoring is often recommended for women with higher BMI. What does the evidence say?
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 […]
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
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….
What is a medical indication?
Medical indications exist somewhere on a spectrum between being written on tablets of stone, handed down to new doctors by a supreme being on a mountain top – to being completely made up on a whim. What happens when they are misused?
Brain injury and fetal heart rate patterns
We don’t actually know which fetal heart rate patterns predict developing brain injury. Why?
Going backwards with fetal monitoring guidelines
Fetal monitoring guidelines should be evidence-based and assessed to ensure they are fit for purpose.
Birth Small Talk 