The UK has experienced ongoing maternity care crises. A study of UK maternity services showed that quality ratings did not correlate with maternal and neonatal outcomes. It is time to question the effectiveness of current quality assessment processes and measures.
A comprehensive literature review by researchers in the UK examined the safety of CTG monitoring in maternity care, identifying prominent system-level issues, including unsafe organizational cultures and inadequate staffing. It is import to focus on staffing, supportive environments, and respectful care to improve outcomes rather than unproven practices.
What happens when you introduce a central fetal monitoring system into a maternity service who are struggling to provide adequate staffing to maintain safety?
Central fetal monitoring systems are becoming more and more common in maternity services in high-income countries. Once-upon-a-time heart rate and contraction data were printed directly to paper. Increasingly, these data are turned into a digital signal and shown on a computer screen. Digital data are easy to move to a place outside the birth room. With central fetal monitoring, data are moved to a central location in the maternity service, […]
One of the problems I see over and over again is the over simplification of complexities in relation to fetal heart rate monitoring in labour. Education and clinical guidelines tend to produce what appear to be logical and straightforward explanations and advice when there is a lot of mud in the pond. Here are two examples: In both of these cases the situations are much more complicated (like this and […]
Catherine Williams recently introduced me to the term “safety theatre”. New research points out why investing in CTG monitors and education won’t improve safety. @BerksMaternity
“Being K2ed”: an unintended consequence of central fetal monitoring.
Questions remain about the safety of central fetal monitoring systems.
Birth Small Talk 