[2015 Jan] Why are Medical Professionals who Deliver Babies in Hospitals Choosing to have their Own Babies at Home?  Pregnant women who want to avoid surgical birth know they have to avoid the hospital.....“Women are having their bodies completely hijacked,” says Dr. Jennifer Lang, M.D., a 38-year-old board certified ob-gyn based in southern California who specializes in complex gynecologic surgery and has attended over 1,000 births. Although Dr. Lang gave birth to her first child at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, she chose to have her subsequent children at home.....“After a lot of research and time working in the hospital I realized that I felt safer delivering at home without the time constraints and medical equipment restrictions like continuous fetal monitoring,” Dodge explains in an email.   Continuous fetal monitoring, though the norm in most American hospitals, has been repeatedly shown to increase the likelihood of C-section and instrumental birth without improving fetal outcomes. Hospitals in Scandinavia, where the infant and maternal mortality rates are much lower than in the United States, have discontinued its use......“In residency I witnessed complications that we doctors cause. There were so many,” Dr. Fish explains as her pudgy 7-month-old daughter Kailani gums her shoulder."....“But if doctors could step back they would see that the vast majority of these complications happen because of things that are done to the mothers in the process of giving birth in the hospital. When you take away medicinal pain relief, epidurals, restriction of food and water, staff coming in and out of the room, and routine vaginal exams while women are in active labor, you can significantly reduce the complications that are caused by the interventions themselves. Moms do better without unnecessary interventions than they do when they’re overly managed.”

[2006] Continuous cardiotocography (CTG) as a form of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) for fetal assessment during labour.   Continuous cardiotocography during labour is associated with a reduction in neonatal seizures, but no significant differences in cerebral palsy, infant mortality or other standard measures of neonatal well-being. However, continuous cardiotocography was associated with an increase in caesarean sections and instrumental vaginal births. The real challenge is how best to convey this uncertainty to women to enable them to make an informed choice without compromising the normality of labour.