|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
OB: Fetal Heart Monitoring Fails to Find Cerebral Palsy Precursor LesionsFrom: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)Wed Apr 7 09:13:35 2004
By Anthony J. Brown, MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 26 - Electronic fetal heart monitoring is not useful in detecting the cerebral white matter injury that precedes cerebral palsy, according to findings presented Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation in Houston. This may help explain why the incidence of cerebral palsy has not fallen since this type of fetal monitoring was adopted. "Electronic fetal monitoring was introduced in the late 1960s and it was hoped that we could detect which babies were experiencing hypoxia during labor and then intervene," lead author Dr. Janyne Althaus, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Reuters Health. "Such monitoring gradually became standard of care without ever having a true randomized controlled trial to see if it actually" helped prevent cerebral palsy. "In our study, we found no significant difference in any monitoring characteristics between infants diagnosed with brain injury in the neonatal period and healthy infants," Dr. Althaus noted. This suggests that "electronic fetal monitoring really can't tell us the status of the baby's brain." The findings stem from a case-control study of 40 brain injured infants and 40 control infants born at one tertiary hospital between July 1999 and September 2001. The analysis focused on heart tracings obtained for the last hour of the first stage of labor for vaginal deliveries and for the last hour prior to delivery for cesarean sections. As noted, no significant differences were seen between the groups in any monitoring parameter, including baseline fetal heart rate, time spent with a fast or slow heart rate, heart rate variability, and number of decelerations or accelerations. "Although these findings are somewhat discouraging, it's good for us to know the limitations of our technology," Dr. Althaus said. "The assumption has always been that fetal brain injury is something that should be easy to pick up. Apparently, it's not." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- art --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- art fougner, md ich bin ein New Yorker
|
|
Return to
|
Mail a New Message to the Forum: ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net Forum Administrator: geffrey.klein@obgyn.net Report Technical Problems: webmaster@obgyn.net Last Updated: Wed Jul 2 04:37:09 2008 |
The American Medical Association is no longer designating CME hours for AMA Category II CME credit. However, physicians themselves may self designate learning activities as Category II CME credit hours if they feel it is of sufficient educational merit and meets the formal definitions of continuing medical education. OBGYN.net believes these interaction in this forum meets these criteria. For further information see the AMA web site.