A randomized trial of weekly cardiotocography in high-risk obstetric patients.
A randomized clinical trial of once-weekly antenatal fetal heart rate monitoring in 539 high-risk patients could find no benefit of monitoring in terms of perinatal mortality, morbidity or Apgar score. The previously well-documented association between abnormal antenatal fetal heart rate traces and low Apgar score was confirmed. A detailed case review showed that in this population monitoring was irrelevant to almost all of the 13 perinatal deaths.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001034:Apgar Score; D001724:Birth Weight; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005260:Female; D005318:Fetal Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D005323:Fetal Monitoring; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008875:Middle Aged; D011247:Pregnancy; D011897:Random Allocation; D012306:Risk