Baby Beat has provided the funding for vital Foetal Monitoring Equipment for the Maternity Assessment Unit in the Sharoe Green Unit at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
At a cost of £32,706, three FM30 foetal monitoring machines with ultrasound transducers, toco transducers and event markers, maternal blood pressure and oxygen saturation monitoring and Dawes Redman package have been purchased, which will mean women will be able to be seen and assessed more promptly,
The Maternity service regularly uses cardiotocograph (CTG) equipment to monitor the wellbeing of unborn babies. In recent years, increasing clinical emphasis has been placed on appropriate foetal monitoring during the antenatal period, especially where concerns around the growth and development of an unborn baby have been raised, or where the mother presents with concerns about her baby’s movements in utero.
Changes in practice have led to an increase in activity and complexity of clinical care within the maternity assessment department and the area has been redeveloped. The Maternity Assessment Suite manages the majority of unplanned or emergency admissions, and a significant proportion of these are from mothers who have concerns about their baby’s wellbeing. Before the monitors were installed, women were sometimes required to wait for monitoring, because the CTG machines were being used in other areas of the maternity service and then needed to be transported between clinical areas and assessment spaces. This was not only time-consuming for the staff, but also lead to equipment being damaged.
The three new machines are wall-mounted to ensure that they are always available in this clinical area.
The monitors have integrated monitoring of maternal blood pressure, oxygen saturation and pulse rate with measurement of multiple foetal heart rates and uterine activity. This enables a full assessment of both mother and baby to be performed simultaneously. The monitors funded by Baby Beat will complement the existing CTG monitors to enable each clinical space within the assessment suite to have a CTG monitor available.
Sue Swire said: “Baby Beat is delighted to be able to fund the foetal monitors, it’s great to see them now in use and that mums-to-be and their babies are already benefitting from them. We are very grateful to our donors who have helped raise the funds needed, in particular Tesco’s Bags of Help community grants scheme who donated £5,000 and to the Fitton Trust and Glasdon’s Community programme who collectively donated £785.”