FETO-Maternal Monitoring using Electrical Impedance Tomography Method

Identification of the onset of true labor has been one of the most difficult and critical challenge facing obstetric in maternity care. Predicting when true labor will start and recognizing when labor actually starts is important for both normal and complex pregnancies. For normal pregnancy, onset of true labor is important for reducing hospital costs as it will avoid admission when mother is not in labor. The standard methods of monitoring the fetus and maternal health during labour are cardiotocogram, tocography, Ultrasound and Magnetocardiograpghy. These methods cause some degree of inconvenience to the patient and demand special attendance of the obstetrician also these methods cannot be used for continuously monitoring of the fetal well being. To overcome the limitations of above techniques, a non-invasive impedance plethysmography method is proposed. This technique helps electrical field distribution monitored on the surface and likely to provide information because of fetal movements.