Intensive labour-room management has created a need for instrumental monitoring of foetal heartrate and uterine contraction. To fulfil this need, a versatile instrument has been designed and built, which provides transvaginal and external abdominal methods of monitoring both variables. For the foetal heartrate, these are, respectively, foetal-scalp electrocardiography (a simple scalp electrode which is atraumatic and efficient is described) and Doppler sonar at 2 MHz. For uterine contraction, the methods are direct pressure measurement via intrauterine catheter and indirect measurement by guard-ring dynamometer. A new combined transducer is described that incorporates the ultrasonic Doppler Sonicaid D205 foetal heart-beat detector in a development of Smyth's guard-ring principle of measuring uterine contraction (UK Patent Application 40642/71). The clinical application and results are briefly reviewed.