Intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring

It is a general belief that the FHR tracings obtained with the external mode of FHR monitoring are of a quality comparable to the internal mode. Rupture of the membranes is considered unnecessary to generate a good quality trace. These opinions leading to false trust and the neglect of obtaining good quality traces are not supported by data from our own hospital. In singletons and especially in twins, internal FHR monitoring provides far better data than the external mode.