Trace Display Doppler Monitors
Recently, more advanced handheld Doppler FHR monitors provide numerical
readouts as well as ’FHR trace display’. The intermittently recorded FHR
traces could be replayed during labour and downloaded onto computers for
archiving. It would be tempting to assume that the ‘FHR trace display’
must be a definitive advantage. However, the main advantage of IA is its
simplicity and practicality in midwife-led units, home births and rural
settings. Moreover, trace recording and archiving is likely to
exponentially increase (rather than decrease) the medical litigation as
happened with CTG. It appears that the trace-display Doppler-device is
an unsatisfactory half-way house between IA and CTG.18