Cookies on this website
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Continue' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Oxford Labour Monitoring

MISSION

Oxford Labour Monitoring is committed to preventing injury of babies during labour and delivery, caused by lack of oxygen in utero - rare but devastating events. Our work will potentially benefit families, clinicians and healthcare systems by reducing brain injuries, perinatal deaths and unnecessary interventions.


Oxford Labour Monitoring logo

OUR TEAM

Our specialist team develops data-driven cardiotocography (CTG) systems/software to continuously assess fetal wellbeing at the onset of and during term labour. We are based at the John Radcliffe Hospital and at the Big Data Institute. 

  • Daniel Asfaw
    Daniel Asfaw

    Post-doctoral scientist, AI and Deep Learning for intrapartum CTG

  • John Tolladay
    John Tolladay

    Postdoctoral Researcher in Big Data for Fetal Monitoring in Labour

Nicky Lyon

Nicky Lyon

Expert Advisor and Patient Public Voice, co-founder of the Campaign for Safer Births

Laurence Impey

Lawrence Impey

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Austin Ugwumadu

St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

MONITORING DURING LABOUR

Daily fetal monitoring in labour at the Women’s Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital. The Cardiotocogram (CTG) consists of two signals: fetal heart rate and uterine contractions. In each delivery room, the CTG is printed on paper and assessed by eye which is unreliable. A typical delivery unit generates 20-25km/year of paper CTGs.

Photo caption: Daily fetal monitoring in labour at the Oxford's Hospital. The Cardiotocogram (CTG) consists of two graphs: fetal heart rate and uterine contractions. A typical delivery unit generates 20-25km/year of paper CTGs.

We can listen to the fetal heart rate through a stethoscope, a Doppler hand-held device or a continuous electronic monitor. Electronic monitoring produces a paper strip, showing graphs of the fetal heart rate and of uterine contractions, which change with time.

During birth, the stress of contractions and descent through the birth canal can reduce a baby’s oxygen supply. We use advanced signal processing and data analytics to interrogate our large database of nearly 100,000 labours at term, with digital CTGs linked to perinatal outcomes. We are also researching which clinical factors, markers or symptoms can make fetal monitoring in labour more individualised and precise.

Our goal is to translate the new findings into a software for risk assessment at the bedside during labour, similarly to the Dawes-Redman pre-labour CTG monitoring decision-support.

Parent, Patient and Public Involvement (PPPI)

Oxford Labour Monitoring is committed to engaging the public in our work, by communicating what we do clearly and by putting women and families at the centre of our research.

Because of the unique nature of our work, we call this Parent, Patient and Public Involvement (PPPI). 

PPI

Our PPPI strategy is led by Rachel Plachchinski and Charlotte Bevan with the support of Nicky Lyon, founder of the Campaign for Safer Births.

We have further representation from women with lived experience of labour monitoring and experience of different outcomes on our PPPI panel.

DECIDE: DECision-support for Intrapartum Data-driven Evaluation

i4i NIHR Product Development Award

1 May 2021 – 30 April 2024

More information coming soon....

DEEP LEARNING FOR FETAL MONITORING IN LABOUR

EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Grant (a collaborative project with Portsmouth University, UK)

1 April 2021 - 31 March 2024

More information coming soon....

SIGNAL PROCESSING & MONITORING IN LABOUR WORKSHOPS (SPAM)

The Signal Processing and Monitoring (SPaM) in Labour workshop is a bi-annual event, held since 2015. The workshops provide a friendly forum for people with expertise across different fields, who are learning to speak the same multidisciplinary language and keep pushing forward the research in intrapartum monitoring. Anyone with interest in intrapartum fetal monitoring and/or passion for healthy labour outcomes is welcome, including medical doctors, midwives or other health care professionals, mathematicians, engineers, PhD Students or industry representatives. It is an exciting initiative to bring together experts in labour monitoring and fetal heart rate analysis to critically review and discuss current issues such as: new technology; comprehensive digital databases; statistical analysis; classification; clinical practice, fetal physiology and challenges. There are talks on the clinical aspects of labour monitoring and fetal physiology as well as computerised CTG and heart rate variability, and we are providing a truly multidisciplinary forum and spirit. 

Read more

Watch SPAM In Labour Workshop Talks

Upcoming events 

Job Opportunities

No open positions are available currently but if you wish to join the team, keep in contact please!

Big data for fetal monitoring during labour: Georgieva Oct 2020

Follow us on Twitter

collaboratIONS

Ivan Jordanov, University of Portsmouth

Oliver Rivero-Arias and Charles Roehr, Neonatal and Perinatal Epidemiology Unit

Angeliki Kerasidou, Ethox Centre

Gary Collins and Michael Maia Schlussel, Centre for Statistics in Medicine

Oxford AHSN 

Ana Namburete, Department of Computer Science

Related research themes

Our Maternal & Fetal Health research covers the following research groups: Lactation, Intelligent Imaging in Fetal Health, The Oxford Safer Pregnancy Alliance (OSPREA), Oxford Labour Monitoring, Placental Imaging and Pre-eclampsia.
Maternal & Fetal Health