Oxford Labour Monitoring

OUR 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, the deaths of babies during labour or after birth and unnecessary medical interventions in childbirth.

OUR APPROACH

Our multidisciplinary research is focused on determining the relationship between fetal heart rate and fetal health around the onset of and during labour, by analysing 'big' routinely collected datasets of maternity data. The goal is to provide much needed, data-driven software at the bedside to support clinical decisions when women are in labour.

OUR HISTORY

The Oxford Labour Monitoring group was established in 2022, building on its predecessor - Oxford Fetal Monitoring Technologies which began in early 2012 as a natural umbrella for the relevant work in the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health spanning over 30 years.

Latest News

We are starting to recruit to our feasibility study for the decision-support tool. The tool, which we are currently calling Fit4Labour, will give us information on the mother's and baby's wellbeing at the start of labour. This is to support women in making decisions about their care in labour.

Several members of the Oxford Labour Monitoring team presented at the Signal Processing and Monitoring in Labour workshop in Munich. Click here to read more about the SPaM conferences.

Oxford Labour Monitoring research recently featured in online magazine TechMonitor: 'Using big data to help midwives prevent potentially lethal brain injuries during childbirth'. Click here to read the article

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Meet our team

The research relating to monitoring during labour is led by Professor Antoniya Georgieva . 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 and collaborates with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. The research is partially funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

	Antoniya Georgieva Associate Professor, Group Lead
	Mariana Tome Clinical Research Fellow
	Nicky Lyon Expert Advisor and Patient Public Voice, co-founder of the Campaign for Safer Births
	Lawrence Impey Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

See all team profiles

PUBLIC involvement

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. We call this Parent, Patient and Public Involvement (PPPI). Our PPPI strategy is led by Rachel Plachchinski and Charlotte Bevan with the support of Nicky Lyon, founder of the Campaign for Safer Births and our PPPI panel.

You can see all the members of our PPPI panel here.

Charlotte Bevan

Parent, Patient and Public Involvement (PPPI) Co-Lead

Rachel Plachcinski

Parent, Patient and Public Involvement (PPPI) Co-Lead

NETWORKING (SPAM WORKSHOPS)

The Signal Processing and Monitoring (SPaM) in Labour workshop is a bi-annual event, held since 2015. 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. Prof Antoniya Georgieva, Mariana Tome, Rachel Plachcinski and Daniel Asfaw presented at the 4th Signal Processing and Monitoring (SPaM) in labour workshop in Munich, Germany, from 7th -9th July. This was yet another very stimulating event, which saw a total of over 50 participants from different countries and disciplines, including industry representatives. You can find more information about the workshop here.

See all SPAM workshops

SPOTLIGHT: HOw we LISTEN TO A BABY'S HEARTBEAT

A CTG also known as a Cardiotocograph is a machine that monitors the baby's heartbeat and the uterine contractions during pregnancy and labour. 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.

More about CTGs