I can see the benefits in some situations. Unfortunately midwifery care isn't always one-to-one (in the public system at least) so having the monitoring visible to the midwife flying the front desk would be of benefit if it is particularly busy. Having these monitors certainly shouldn't have any impact on the midwifery care as interpreting a CTG is such a small part of the job IMO. We're there for the women to assist with pain relief, to support and encourage, to assess the labour an interpret behaviour. None of this can be done from the desk. Having this monitoring system also shouldn't change the fact that not all women need CTG monitoring during labour, it is only necessary when there are risk factors present and given this, the amount of times i have left a woman an entered the room 10 mins later to find that the CTG has lost contact for that entire 10 mins is mind boggling an may also cause the woman to be strapped to the damn thing for even longer!!! So there are benefits. But i guess the stanard of care, like always, depends on the actual midwife