Monica AN24 - In the Hospital

An alternative to conventional intermittent FHR monitoring for frequently monitored high-risk inpatients.

The current method used to confirm the health of the fetus is to record the fetal heart rate using Doppler ultrasound. This is a good method to monitor/record the baby's heart rate for short periods and as a one off test. However, this method is not suitable for long-term measurements and is rarely used for longer than 1hr at a time and 30 minutes is more typical.

More importantly the method can only advise on the current status of the fetus and it has limited prognostic value.

This means that for the at-risk fetus, Doppler Ultrasound FHR monitoring has to be repeated 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes more.

The Monica AN24 provides a genuine alternative to this labour intensive and time consuming monitoring regime:

• Once the electrodes are positioned on the abdomen in standard position for all pregnancies - this takes less time than positioning the Doppler Ultrasound and Toco Transducer - the electrodes can be left in place for 3 or 4 days before being replaced.
• Connecting the leads and the Monica AN24 takes but a moment and monitoring can commence immediately with a touch of the button.
• The Monica AN24 is truly unobtrusive and can now be left totally unsupervised to monitor both the pregnant women and fetus for 16hrs or more.
• By starting the monitoring in the early evening and removing it in the early morning clinical trials have demonstrated that the user is almost guaranteed a long period of high quality FHR recording.
• Although the fetal/maternal monitoring record could be in excess of 16hrs the system includes a FHR analysis program, based on the Dawes/Redman FHR analysis, minimising the task of assessing and reporting the monitoring session.
• The benefits of long term FHR monitoring have been clearly demonstrated, Reference 6