Cardiotocography

And they kept going about the continuous monitoring.

And the hospital that I was at have the wireless CTG monitors.

And they said, well, if you want to be in the pool, which I wasn't, I didn't need that.

I wanted to have the option.

Like, I was so fine.

I was definitely aware the contractions were happening, but it was very, very manageable.

And then I had the CTG monitor on, the wireless CTG monitor, so I didn't have, like, midwives didn't need to get wet to the elbows trying to find the doppler or anything.

It felt really lovely.

So it's used during labour to check the baby's health, to check their oxygen levels.

So if you are having an induced labour, you'll be on CTG, which we spoke about before.

You'll be on constant foetal monitoring.

And if the heart rate pattern suggests that the baby might not be getting enough oxygen, they can do foetal blood sampling.

Well, we know that the evidence that they produced and always have produced has been completely flawed and full of lies.

Prime example just being the CTG monitoring.

That was

introduced without any evidence behind it, saying it made a claim that it was going to reduce cerebral palsy.

i heard um i was listening to midwives cauldron and i heard dr rachel reed say we might as well just record this and put it on the end of every episode um we've the evidence shows this practice doesn't do it because it's not evidence-based, practice is not evidence-based, it's culture-based and it's all a load of bollocks.

But I think the bits of research that do support physiological birth and that is completely ignored.

And yet the stuff, so Kirsten Small has done a whole load of stuff about the CTG.

She's got a massive website.

I don't want to get too bogged down on that right now.

What this means is that you will need CTG monitoring and it's actually recommended the entire time that you are on the synthetic oxytocin drip that you have CTG monitoring.

So CTG monitoring is constant monitoring of your baby and your contractions.

It's where you have those bands around your stomach and And you have monitors placed against your bump and it can be quite restrictive.

It's hard for you to walk around, to move around, to have active movement.

So oftentimes when you're having CTG monitoring, it's recommended that you just lay flat on the bed.

Sometimes people do manage to get into an all fours position or to bounce on a bath ball and manage to keep the monitoring in place.

But if you're not able to keep it in place, then it will sort of be like pushed that you do just stay laid down on the bed.

She was quite senior, and so I sort of went in, in one of my first appointments and was like, "I had an awful birth first time, and I just want this one to be different." And she was really understanding.

I said, "I would like a VBAC, and I would actually like it to be in water at, or in the birth center," which is obviously out of policy 'cause they want you to be, uh, have a CTG monitor on you and be in the labor ward.

And she never once was like ...

She did say that ...

And then...

I they were pink so no meconium and I didn't call the obstetrician because I was like nothing to be worried about I called him in the morning and told him that last night my waters broke and he was like why didn't you tell me I want you to come into hospital and all these kind of things because he wanted to do like the CTG all the things um

how far along were you

I was 40 plus four.

I was full term.

Yeah.

So I went into the hospital, they did the like admission CTG and all like the tests and yeah, I had like miles contractions every now and then, but nothing like picking up yet.

and they also kind of started to push me towards antibiotics which i didn't want to take and then i said look i want to go home and they asked me to come again later that day and then we were just kind of going back and forth in and out of the hospital which was kind of annoying because

She's had abdominal pain since but no vaginal bleeding.

Unfortunately, there's sustained fetal tachycardia on the CTG.

The patient's heart rate is 125 and her blood pressure is 98 on 65.

What are your key considerations in the management of this patient?

of stop and find a safe space to stop and stuff yeah it makes it a bit more stressful doesn't

it it was so yeah it was it was quite stressful and i was just like i hadn't eaten anything either because i couldn't keep anything down like i did the idea of eating was really which is really also a bit annoying because obviously that's where you get most of your energy from you know i haven't really eaten for like hours and hours but i couldn't because i just felt too sick so that was a real pain and then we got to the anti-nase award and the first thing I said was like please give me some anti-sickness I can't take this anymore so the midwife went and got me some of that which was great it really worked for me so I was really happy with that And yeah, then she wanted me to do a CTG.

Okay, yeah.

But she wanted me to sort of like sit still on the bed, obviously, for the 30 minutes.

her.

But

yeah, so she tried to do the CTG and obviously I moved because I was being sick at the same time.

And so she just tried to do it like three times, which meant that I had to sort of sit on the bed for... about two, three hours while she's trying to do the CTG.

I guess it was just what it was at the time sort of thing.

But yeah, they hooked me up to a CTG.

My baby was fine.

I think they gave me fluids as well, just because I was, yeah, just absolutely ratchet, basically.

Like I said, it knocked me really on my arse.

And they were saying at the time, because they were watching the CTG, are you feeling any contraction? Are you feeling any tightening or anything like that? And I said, no, everything feels fine.

But they were watching it on the, you know, on the monitoring.

It sort of, maybe it was Braxton Hicks or something like that.