| Popis: |
The ability to make an accurate assessment of fetal well-being during labour is a great challenge. Animal and human studies have shown that fetal hypoxemia during labour can alter the shape of the fetal electrocardiogram (FECG) waveform, notable elevation of the T-wave and depression of the ST segment. A new medical device (STAN, Neoventa Medical, Mölndal, Sweden) has been developed to monitor the FECG during labour as an adjunct to continuous electronic FHR monitoring (CTG+ST analysis). Before a more general clinical use the technique has been the object of three randomised trials. The present thesis concerns the implementation of this new technique into clinical practice. At Sahlgren’s hospital, Göteborg, Sweden, 4830 out of 14687 (32.9%) term deliveries were monitored between October 2000 and September 2002. While the number of monitored cases increased from 28.1% in the first year to 37.7% during the second year, the frequency of metabolic acidosis (pH 12mmol/L) decreased from 0.76% to 0.44% in all patients and from 1.12% to 0.56% in the CTG+ST monitored group assessed to be in need of close surveillance. The number of operative deliveries was unaltered (Paper I). In a retrospective study at Varberg district hospital labour ward, covering the total population of deliveries during 2004 and 2005, 59% of the deliveries (1875/3193) were monitored with CTG+ST. The metabolic acidosis rate was 0.5%. Crash Caesarean sections (CS) were significantly reduced from 1.5% in the conventionally monitored (CTG) group to 0.3% in the CTG+ST group (Paper II). It was concluded that the frequency of metabolic acidosis in this large number of deliveries from Göteborg and Varberg is the same as noted in the CTG+ST group in a Swedish randomised trial on CTG+ST analysis. Cases originating from a European Union commission supported multi centre study where CTG+ST had been used together with fetal blood sampling (FBS) were analysed. Of the 911 cases, 53 had cord artery pH |
