Electronic fetal heart rate monitoring: Research guidelines for interpretation

The purpose of the National Institutes of Health research planning workshops is to assess the research status of clinically important areas. This article reports on a workshop whose meetings were held between May 1995 and November 1996 in Bethesda, Maryland, and Chicago, Illinois. Its specific purpose was to develop standardized and unambiguous definitions for fetal heart rate tracings. The recommendations for interpreting fetal heart rate patterns are being published here and simultaneously by the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing.