Why is a fetal distress a challenge?
Aside from the obvious concern that the baby is not handling labor well, the theory of fetal distress causes a cascade of challenges for the mother who desires to have a natural birth, even if she does not experience fetal distress during her labor. To ensure your baby is safe during labor, his heart rate will be monitored. Your baby will be considered safe as long as his heart rate stays below 160 and above 100-120, and it does not become irregular. There are two ways to do this which operate equally well for the purposes of keeping babies safe. One, called intermittent auscultation, is to listen to the babies heart with a special stethoscope every 15 minutes. The other, called continuous monitoring, is to attach devices to the mother which allow a continuous printout of information about the baby’s heart rate and mother’s contractions. Although the two methods do work equally well at keeping your baby safe, there are important differences. The first difference is that the electronic
