In Practice: Maternal Heart Rate Artifact.

Maternal heart rate artifact occurs during fetal heart rate monitoring when the maternal heart rate is mistaken for the fetal heart rate. Unrecognized maternal heart rate artifact poses major patient safety risks due to errors of commission and omission when healthcare teams do not realise that the supposedly "fetal" heart rate tracing that they are observing is misleading. In 2022, a technical update was published by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada to mitigate this risk by describing the signs of possible maternal heart rate artifact and the steps to obtain an accurate fetal heart rate tracing. Despite this, concerns remain regarding implementation in clinical practice. Here, we present 2 illustrative fetal and maternal heart rate tracings to increase awareness and help with knowledge translation.