Neonatal Outcomes of Continues Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring in Low-Risk Pregnant Women During Labor

Various methods are used in order to describe the heart rate patterns of the fetus. The use of electronic monitoring during labor is widely accepted today. The aim of this study was to compare the neonatal outcomes of continuous Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) monitoring to intermittent auscultation among low-risk pregnant women during labor. This randomized clinical trial was conducted among 900 low-risk pregnant women who met inclusion criteria and were admitted to maternity wards of academic hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences for labor. They were randomly divided into two groups: the intermittent auscultation group and the Continuous FHR monitoring group. The pregnancy and neonatal outcomes were compared in two groups; data were processed in SPSS16 software. P less than 0.05 was considered as significant level. In this study, the first and fifth minutes Apgar scores, the rate of NICU admission, advance resuscitation requirement, neonatal seizure incidence, and the neonatal or fetal death did not differ significantly between two groups (P>0.05). In the Continues monitoring group, the rate of cesarean section due to fetal distress and operative vaginal delivery was significantly higher rather than the other group (P=0.001). The results of this study showed that continuous FHR monitoring in low-risk pregnancies during labor increases the risk of cesarean and instrumental delivery without improving neonatal outcomes.