Study Questions Fetal Monitors’ Utility in Halting Brain Damage
From Times staff and wire reports
A new study has cast doubt on the effectiveness of fetal monitors in preventing brain damage during childbirth, demonstrating that 99.8% of all signs of such injuries turn out to be false alarms. Electronic fetal monitoring is routine in hospital delivery rooms. Some critics contend that monitoring often leads doctors to perform unnecessary caesarean sections.
The new study, conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and reported in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, shows that monitoring does an extremely poor job of achieving its primary goal, detecting fetal distress before it leads to brain damage.
