Borzie, K.
Jasper, N.
Southall, D. P.
MacDonald, R.
Kola, A. A.
Dolo, O.
Magnus, A.
Watson, S. D.
Casement, M.
Dahn, B.
Jallah, W.
Article History
Received: 13 April 2019
Accepted: 2 April 2020
First Online: 15 June 2020
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: Informed consent, written or verbal, was obtained from all participants in this project.In accordance with 45 CFR 46 the research was approved by the National Research Ethics Board (NREB) of Liberia through a full board review. The federal wide assurance number of the NREB is 000 21658 and organisation number 000 8374. This approval was given after reviewing the documents relating to the initiative FHR monitoring project, which included the protocol stipulation that all mothers in labour (themselves individually and whatever their ages) would give their informed consent to be involved in the initiative (FHR monitoring project).Because of poverty and complex social circumstances, it is common for mothers in Liberia to be aged under 16 years. Also, young mothers frequently attend the hospitals in labour by themselves, with no legally assigned family members in attendance and sometimes only a traditional birth attendant for support. Many women and adolescent girls do not know their age. Nine participants were aged under 16 years; despite their age, these young participants were deemed to be competent to give informed consent to be involved in the monitoring project as per the approved study protocol. Further consent from their parents or guardians was not sought.
: Written consent for publication was obtained from the participant included in Fig. InternalRef removed, as stated in the Legend to this figure in the Methods section. This was obtained using an MCAI consent form and is available on request.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.