History   

   The fetal stethoscope, or fetoscope was first described by David Hillis in 1917 at the Chicago Lying-In Hospital. Amid much controversy, in 1922, Joseph DeLee, Hillis’s superior at the same institution, described the device again, taking priority for its creation. The device eventually became known as the DeLee-Hillis fetoscope and was at the forefront of intrapartum fetal monitoring for the next half-century. Using various criteria mostly consistent with Von Winckel’s 1893 description of fetal distress, intermittent auscultation (IA) of the fetal heart rate during labor became widely recommended. DeLee himself recommended a program of auscultation every 30 minutes during the first stage of labor, and every three or five minutes, or even continuously during the second stage of labor, when any of described signs of fetal distress were taken as an indication for forceps delivery. Electric, amplified fetoscopes of Matthews, Marvel, and Kirschbaum made the task of fetal monitoring easier by the 1940s when IA became the emerging standard of care. It remained so until well into the 1970s, and is used in some form even today.

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