Results
Amongst the 400 consecutive pregnant women, 103 (25.75%) were enrolled during the latent phase of labour and 297 (74.25%) were enrolled prior to induction of labour. The most common indication for labour induction was spontaneous ruptured of membranes (31.99%). Median (IQR) of gestational age at enrollment was 39.57 (38.43–40.57) weeks and 63.25% of women were nulliparous. There were no cases with absent/reversed end diastolic flow in the umbilical artery. A total of 6 (1.50%) and 148 (37.00%) newborns required NICU and SCBU admission, respectively. Characteristics of the study population regarding NICU/SCBU admission of the newborns are summarised in Table S1 .
Of these participants, 34 (8.5%) women had emergency delivery due to pathological CTG during labour, 12 (3.0%) and 22 (5.5%) women were delivered by emergency Caesarean section and emergency operative vaginal delivery, respectively. The maternal demographic and pregnancy characteristics between cases requiring emergency delivery due to pathological CTG during labour and those that did not are summarised inTable 1 . Women who required emergency delivery due to pathological CTG during labour, compared to those that did not, had significantly lower MCA-PI, MCA-PI z-score, Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes as well as umbilical cord arterial pH and base excess. On the other hand, there were higher rates of umbilical cord arterial pH < 7.1 and NICU admission. There were no differences in other parameters among maternal and labour characteristics, maternal-foetal Doppler indices, cCTG parameters and birth outcomes observed between these two groups.
Umbilical cord arterial pH was associated with log10cCTG STV (r = 0.107, p = 0.035) but not EFW z-score and maternal-foetal Doppler velocimetry. Whereas there was no correlation between these prelabour parameters (EFW z-score, maternal-foetal Doppler velocimetry and log10 cCTG STV) and umbilical cord arterial base excess as presented in Table S2 and Table S3 . Multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that significant independent predictors for umbilical cord arterial pH were log10 cCTG STV (p = 0.025) and smoking (p = 0.006) withR2 = 0.031 (Table 2) . Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that none of these prelabour parameters were predictive for emergency delivery due to pathological CTG during labour and umbilical cord arterial pH < 7.1(Table 4 and Table S5) . Nonetheless, nulliparity, maternal diabetes (pre-existing or gestational diabetes mellitus) and EFW z-score were associated with an increased risk of NICU/SCBU admission (Table 3) .