Foetal Monitoring During Labour.

[tutmae]

Cheers Alioops. I didn't realise it was so restictive!! I don't know what I would do if I couldn't spend at least a bit of the birth in the shower!!
Thanks for the help

[Tobily]

This may be a silly question, but may I ask the reasons for not having continual monitoring if it's suggested? I too am starting to look into birth plans and whatnot, but am very much a "if the doc/midwife suggests it I'll do it" type gal.

Aside from the extremely restrictive nature of constant monitoring, there is a good deal of evidence that use of it during a normal labour increases your risk of ending up with a caesarean. And the kicker is that it does not lead to more healthy babies.

Intermittent monitoring by hand held doppler has been shown over and over again to produce as good outcomes as continuous monitoring - without restricting the mother and without making her more likely to end up in theatre.

So why do they want us to use it? Because as kelly pointed out in another thread, it spits out a black and white record of everything that happened to the baby during that labour. A record that protects their backsides.

It's scary, but there are alot of practices used in obstetrics that aren't based on best evidence. And that aren't motivated by what's best for mum and baby. While we'd like to think that all hospital policy on this stuff is driven by good evidence, and by the needs of mum's and babies...hospitals are big institutions trying to deliver a service. So they're not just driven by you and your needs - they're driven by limiting liability, staffing issues, budgetary constraints - lots of other stuff that can end up impacting on you at a time when you're least likely to be able to negotiate around it or fend it off.

[Lolli]

After I had a a lot of bleeding in pre-labour,I had continous monitoring for most of my labour (which, thankfully, was only 3 hours). I wasn't allowed to get off the bed (I remember begging the midwife at one point to just let me walk, just for a few minutes, but it was a no go). It made it a really excruiating experience.

Having said that, I'm glad I had it. My baby's heart rate had dropped to 40 bpm and wasn't coming back up. I had no idea anything was wrong, and I was given an option of getting him out in two pushes or going for a c-section (I managed to push him out myself and he was bright blue). I can see the argument against my point- that I might have been one of those women that ended up with an unneccasery caesarian, but better to be safe than sorry.

It's one of those things that in some cases is not only neccesary, but highly advisable. In a normal labour, no, but if anything starts to go wrong, don't hesitate to use the technology that we are so lucky to have available to us.
Best of luck with your birth experience