Re: [ozmidwifery] fetal heart in labour

[Denise Hynd]

Dear Mary As I said in my email I am and was not saying do or not take the FH every half hour or any particular time.   Rather I was & am asking for reflection on why an insistence on an arbitary time pattern for FH and what is the impact of what we are saying is"safe" practice and for whom?   I am concerned insistance without consideration of the impact, especially the insistance of after every contraction . Is the latter not the equivalent of continuous monitoring ? The research supports intermittent over continuous with the latter linked to increased intervention with no improvement in fetal outcomes!   I am also asking for midwives to develop more than skills in charting the FH in facilitating a safe and effective progress of labour, particulalry knowing the impact of the psycho-social environment on the progress of labour for example the inhibiting impact of adrenaline and the converse how to support the flow of oxytocins and endorphins in the woman which will "expedite" the birth !!   I understand the risks and the heart ache of sudden death, but no matter what we do, we shall not be in control and save everyone that is what the escalating C/s is partly about!   Denise ----- Original Message ----- From: Mary Murphy To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 6:31 PM Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] fetal heart in labour Denise, at one level I agree with you, on another, I couldn't feel comfortable if I hadn't been checking about every half hour, or more often if the labour was really hard and fast.  Conditioning maybe?  However, after experiencing a stillbirth in 2nd stge labour at home many years ago, I do know that neither the mother or the midwives (2 of us) knew anything about it until the baby was seen to be limp at birth.    I realise that more frequent FH wouldn't have "saved" the baby because one couldn't even get to O.T for a C/S in the time it took for baby's HR to stop.  A terrible experience for us all. MM