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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ahem. Fetal monitoring does improve outcomes. There is a definite decrease in disability....and sure, there are false positives.  You really want to take that chance? [/quote]

You're absolutely right - how did we, as a civilization, ever survive before the advancement of fetal monitoring?!?!?! Which, by the way, was only invented in the late 60's.

Here's some actual information for those curious on either monitoring actually does anything:

[i]Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) can help us to observe what the heart is doing, how well oxygenated the baby is, and whether the baby appears to be struggling or happily trucking along. EFM became routine in the 80?s under the assumption that it was going to save babies. It was believed that continuous monitoring would pick up the small number of babies who show signs of hypoxia or distress and save them by cesarean section. We now know that a baby’s heart rate in labor is not great indicator of how well the baby is going to do after s/he is born. Regrettably, the technology has been applied in such an extreme manner — virtually all women in the US are attached to a fetal monitor during most or all of their labor — without consideration of whether there could be too much of a good thing.

Studies on EFM were undertaken only after it became a routine part of hospital birth. We now have decades of evidence showing that continuous EFM has no effect on neonatal mortality or morbidity; it does not help babies be born any healthier.  It does however increase the risk of cesarean birth by about three times. Physicians know this, and many will even admit it. Both the US Preventive Services Task Force and the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care recommend against routine EFM for low-risk women, and cannot even recommend it for high-risk women in labor. Why then are healthy, low-risk, un-medicated women still being confined to fetal monitors when we know they don’t make birth any safer?[/i][/quote]

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