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Methods Inf Med 2010; 49(03): 238-253
DOI: 10.3414/ME09-01-0041
Original Articles
Schattauer GmbH

A Non-invasive Methodology for Fetal Monitoring during Pregnancy

E. C. Karvounis
1   Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
M. G. Tsipouras
1   Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
C. Papaloukas
2   Department of Biological Applications and Technology, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
D. G. Tsalikakis
1   Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
K. K. Naka
4   Michaelidion Cardiology Center, Ioannina, Greece
5   Department of Cardiology, Medical School, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
,
D. I. Fotiadis
1   Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece
3   Biomedical Research Institute – FORTH, Ioannina, Greece
4   Michaelidion Cardiology Center, Ioannina, Greece
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

received: 12 May 2009

accepted: 26 August 2009

Publication Date:
17 January 2018 (online)

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Summary

Objectives: This paper describes a methodology for the monitoring of the fetal cardiac health status during pregnancy, through the effective and non-invasive monitoring of the abdominal ECG signals (abdECG) of the mother.

Methods: For this purpose, a three-stage methodology has been developed. In the first stage, the fetal heart rate (fHR) is extracted from the abdECG signals, using nonlinear analysis. Also, the eliminated ECG (eECG) is calculated, which is the abdECG after the maternal QRSs elimination. In the second stage, a blind source separation technique is applied to the eECG signals and the fetal ECG (fECG) is obtained. Finally, monitoring of the fetus is implemented using features extracted from the fHR and f ECG, such as the T/QRS ratio and the characterization of the fetal ST waveforms.

Results: The methodology is evaluated using a dataset of simulated multichannel abdECG signals: 94.79% accuracy for fHR extraction, 92.49% accuracy in T/QRS ratio calculation and 79.87% in ST waveform classification.

Conclusions: The novel non-invasive proposed methodology is advantageous since it offers automated identification of fHR and fECG and automated ST waveform analysis, exhibiting a high diagnostic accuracy.

Keywords

Fetal ECG - heart rate - blind source separation - fetal monitoring - ST analysis
 

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