Monitoring of uterine activity.

The aim of modern obstetrics is to deliver a healthy, undamaged infant to a healthy, happy mother. The ability to classify and treat abnormalities of uterine activity safely with the plotting of cervical progress against time and to quantitate uterine activity as adequate or inadequate allows for more specific and rapid treatment. Treatment may be instituted more rapidly with monitoring and thus avoid prolonged labours with maternal exhaustion and dehydration. With normal fetal heart rate and variability Schifrin (1974) has stated that the differences in fetal outcome associated with various patterns of abnormal labour essentially disappear if mid-forceps procedures are abandoned and only spontaneous vaginal delivery or caesarean section is used.