The future of fetal monitoring.

Abstract

Fetal heart rate monitoring is the most common obstetric procedure, and yet it remains a frustrating technology, plagued by false-positive results and miscommunication between providers. A new generation of invasive and noninvasive monitoring technologies is under development and entering the clinic, including the STAN monitor (Neoventa Medical, Mölndal, Sweden), which improves monitoring accuracy by incorporating a proxy of the fetal ST-segment. New noninvasive fetal electrocardiography and uterine contraction monitoring technologies will bring novel metrics and potentially improved safety to obstetrics in coming years.