Authors' objectives: Babies continue to die in labour or be born with brain injury due to lack of oxygen during their birth. One way of trying to prevent babies suffering due to a lack of oxygen during birth is to monitor the baby's heart rate. This monitoring is not always easy to interpret. Some patterns are the baby's normal response to the stress of labour whilst others indicate a lack of oxygen. Expertise and experience are essential for accurate interpretation and mistakes are common. This study will test whether an intelligent computer program can help midwives and doctors improve the care they give in response to abnormalities of the baby's heart rate and whether this will lead to fewer babies being harmed because of a lack of oxygen. 46,000 women who have had information about the trial during pregnancy and who are having continuous monitoring of their baby's heart rate in labour will take part in the study. The study will take place in 10 hospitals in the UK and will last for at least 6 years. The team carrying out the study represents the range of expertise and experience necessary to ensure the study is conducted to the highest quality and within the timetable proposed. The practical aspects of running the study will be managed by the Clinical Trials Unit at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit which has 25 years' experience of running large randomised trials in maternity care. Costs: recruiting 46,000 women requires dedicated research midwives in each centre which is costly; however, the potential annual savings to the NHS are far in excess of the cost of the study.

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/hta/063801#/

Year Published: 2018

URL for published report: https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/hta22090#/abstract

Requestor: NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Full HTA

Country: England, United Kingdom

Organisation Name: NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme

Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK

Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

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