People tend to be familiar with routine care for dental health and gynecological health, as well as the standard "physical." Those exams are things that we will do many times during our lives, so we come to know what to expect from them.

Maternity care is different because most of us will have just a couple of children. Some of the components of routine care during labor include cervical exams, electronic monitoring, IVs, catheters and Pitocin. Parents' choice of birth setting and care provider greatly affects how and when these procedures are used.

The first cervical exam takes place in triage. This exam provides a baseline or starting point for measuring the progress of labor. Cervical exams measure several ways that labor can progress:

• Dilation or openness of the cervix
• Effacement, or thinning and shortening, of the cervix
• Station of the baby, or how low the baby is positioned in the pelvis

When a mother arrives in triage, she will be put on an electronic fetal monitor and uterine contraction monitor. There are separate but similar looking monitors, about the size of your palm. Each one is attached to a disposable belt, which holds it against the abdomen. The monitors are plugged into a unit on the wall, which will show a digital reading of the fetal heart rate and contraction rate. The readings are printed on a roll of graph paper.

Normally the hospital wants an initial reading of 20 minutes. It is often referred to as "getting a good strip" on the baby. Getting a good strip means that the baby has a healthy range of heart tones and that the monitors are reading consistently during that time. Sometimes the monitor may not be reading the baby very well and will need to be adjusted. This may also mean that the monitoring period will be longer, in order to "get a good strip."

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