Monitoring

There are a number of ways in which your baby's heartbeat can be monitored during labour:

• Using a foetal stethoscope: it looks a bit like a plastic trumpet and is placed on your tummy so that the midwife can hear the foetal heart by placing her ear at the other end.

• Using a Sonicaid: an ultrasound device that is placed on your tummy so that the baby's heart can be heard through a microphone.

• Using ultrasound monitors: Two of these are strapped to your tummy, and connecting wires display the baby's heartbeat and your contractions on graph paper

• Using a foetal scalp electrode: This is a small monitoring device that is attached to the baby's scalp with a metal clip. The wire from the electrode passes down the vagina and to a visual display unit or a graph-paper device.

The advantage of the first two types of monitoring is that they leave you free to move about as you wish. However, they can only be used in situations where intermittent monitoring is adequate, and they don't offer as much information as the latter two methods.

Ultrasound monitors or a foetal scalp monitor are more suitable in situations where constant monitoring is required, and they give more detailed and accurate information. However, as they involve fixed electronic equipment, they don't allow such freedom of movement and you will need to be careful not to dislodge the monitors.

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