[Technology use in connection with delivery in Danish maternity departments]

With the object of obtaining information about the technology use employed in Danish maternity departments, a questionnaire was sent to the 58 maternity departments which existed in Denmark in May 1989. These maternity departments covered 99% of the 55,660 births in Denmark (in 1987). Deliveries at home (a total of 511) and delivers in departments with less than four deliveries annually (a total nine) were responsible for the remaining 1%. 100% of the departments returned a completed questionnaire. The following percentages are based on the deliveries included in this investigation. The review revealed that 93.5% of Danish women are delivered in departments with access to carditocographic equipment (CTG), 34% in departments where this is offered routinely to all parturient women. Sixteen departments which did not possess CTG equipment all had fewer than 400 deliveries per annum and 12 of these stated that they wished they had had CTG. Only four of the 58 maternity departments (managing 3.4% of the deliveries in 1987) never employ human placental lactogen (HPL) or oestriol (O3) analyses. The most commonly employed hormone parameter is HPL which is undertaken on appropriate indications in 51 of 54 departments and routinely in the remaining three. Scalp-pH is carried out in 13 of the Danish maternity departments. Thus 41.7% of all the parturient women have access to this analysis. However, only 20% are delivered in maternity departments where this test is employed frequently. Cord-blood-pH is employed routinely in 31.7% of the neonates. Measurement of intrauterine pressure is employed in six out of the 58 maternity departments which are responsible for 25% of Danish deliveries. It is concluded that the slightly increased employment of technology use during delivery in 1989 as compared with practice in 1984 may primarily be due to the closing of several small maternity units during the past five years. In general, the use of technologies are less intensive than in England, Germany, France and the USA.