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