One of the most common medical practices used during childbirth, electronic fetal monitoring, may actually pose risks to both mothers and their babies. Health care professionals in New York and around the country may view EFM as a method of avoiding serious risks and complications during labor and delivery. Additionally, records of monitoring are often used to avert medical malpractice possibilities.

It might be nerve-racking for pregnant women in New York to know that the maternal mortality rate in the United States has increased since 1990. In every 100 live births prior to the 1930s, almost one woman died from related complications. This rate had steadily declined by 1987 to fewer than eight maternal deaths out of 100,000 births. Between 1990 and 2013, however, 18.5 women out of 100,000 giving birth died.