You were one of the very first centres that started to use Stan and ST Analysis.
Yes, Professor Risto Erkkola, now retired since two years, was a pioneer. We got our first Stan device already around 1995, before the analysis of the waveform was automatic and before the Stan Guidelines were formalized.
Then in 2000 you joined the study sponsored by the European Union?
We got our first two Stan S21 devices and it was a great relief to have the whole analysis automated and to have the guidelines to rely on. The study meetings with the other nine European centres to compare our progress were very inspiring. We received proper training and a lot of time was spent in case discussions. After the study was finalized, we continued to use ST Analysis and invested in more machines.
You have presented your excellent results at the NFOG meeting in Reykjavik, and lately you had a poster at the SMFM meeting in Dallas.
In Reykjavik we presented our7-years result and in Dallas it was our 10-years results. We have a little over 4000 births per year and very few babies are born with metabolic acidosis. Our result improved during the first years after we implemented Stan, and we are very proud that they have kept very stable over the years since then.
More than 7,000 cases were monitored with CTG + ST Analysis from 2001 to 2010. In total 37 babies were born with metabolic acidosis in this group, and 26 of these babies were born during the first four years. We have also reduced our usage of fetal blood sampling as well as our caesarean section rate, which is now below 14% in the group monitored with ST Analysis.
And now you are the first centre to have been appointed a Neoventa Competence Centre?
We are – and we are very happy for the opportunity. It means a lot to us to have a good relation with other Stan users across Europe and to be part of the “Stan-Family”. We are committed to using the Stan technology, and we hope that our experience can be useful for other centres both here in Finland and elsewhere.
