English

Abstract

Monitoring of health of fetus during labor is critical component of obstetric care. Present study was done to determine the clinical usefulness of continuous electronic fetal heart rate monitoring for identification of distressed fetus. The present study was conducted on 120 cases who were admitted in labor room during labor in SVBP hospital MRT. Continuous EFHRM was done by Hewlett Packard Cardio- tocograph and findings were correlated with neonatal outcome. Cases with high risk factors(70), who had reassuring patterns (i.e. 44 cases) ,all were delivered vaginally but with non reassuring patterns only 8(30.8%)were delivered normally .84(70%) cases with reassuring patterns had zero neonatal mortality .But 36(30%) with non- reassuring patterns 3 neonates expired in spite of all resuscitative measures . But out of 84 reassuring FHR patterns, 10 neonates were diseased i.e they required NICU admission. Continuous EFHRM detected hypoxia even before asphyxia developed and had sensitivity of 84.1% and specificity of 68.75%.False negatives were 15.9%,false positives were 31.25%.Predictive values of reassuring and non-reassuring patterns were 88% & 61% respectively.