Monitoring during labour

[NLW91]

I’m 33 weeks today and just been thinking about labour. I’m a first time mum and naturally starting to get a bit nervous as to what to expect. I’m also excited about it all as well. The one thing that’s bothering me is that during the whole of the labour do they monitor baby’s heartbeat? I’m just petrified something will happen to baby during labour and won’t know about it until he’s arrived? I’ve had a very smooth pregnancy and feel it’s just too good to be true that the rest of it will be fine. I just know I’d feel more at ease if I can hear his heartbeat throughout it all.

In my antenatal class last week they said at a minimum the babies heart rate will be checked every 15 minutes and that in some circumstances they put continuous monitoring on.

I was monitored the entire time as I was only 36 weeks so baby was premature, meant no birthing pool and couldn’t really bounce on the ball or move around as the straps kept slipping. They will manually check baby as often as needed, honestly you don’t want constant monitoring it’s a pain - Unless it’s needed of course!