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 a...

A retrospective survey was performed of the clinical records and cardiotocograms (CTG) of fetuses born in 1978 and 1979 at Helsinki University Central Hospital with hemoglobin concentration less than 170 g/liter in peripheral blood or umbilical artery. Eighty-three fetuses (0.7%) had thus defined anemia. Thirty-eight of them had late decelerations, 29 silent and nine sinusoidal fetal heart rate...

This paper describes the design, construction, and testing of a multi-channel fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) signal generator based on LabVIEW. Special attention is paid to the fetal heart development in relation to the fetus' anatomy, physiology, and pathology. The non-invasive signal generator enables many parameters to be set, including fetal heart rate (FHR), maternal heart rate (MHR), gest...

Extraction of Clinical Information from the Non-Invasive Fetal Electrocardiogram Joachim Behar Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Balliol college Michaelmas 2014 Estimation of the fetal heart rate (FHR) has gained interest in the last century; low heart rate variability has been studied to identify intrauterine growth restricted fetuses (prepartum), and abnormal FHR pattern...

Fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring is commonly used although clinical studies questioned its diagnostic value. Sophisticated FHR variability (fHRV) measures such as fHRV complexity may improve the sensitivity and specificity of FHR monitoring. A more detailed understanding of the physiology underlying fHRV complexity is essential to harness its use for monitoring fetal health. To examine the spe...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the impact of sampling rate on the predictive capability of continuous fetal heart rate (FHR) variability (fHRV) monitoring for detecting fetal acidemia during labor, we tested the performance of the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) in R-R intervals from the ECG when acquired with the sampling rate of 4 Hz currently available in FHR monitors, in comparis...

OBJECTIVES The aims were to investigate whether there are any changes in placental and fetal circulation during Atosiban tocolysis within the first 48 hours of therapy. METHODS Detailed Doppler evaluation of placental and fetal circulation was performed prior to Atosiban administration and thereafter at 24 and 48 hours. Maternal heart rate and the pulsatility index (PI) in both uterine arteri...

OBJECTIVES This study was undertaken to evaluate whether prenatal zinc supplementation affects maturation of fetal cardiac patterns. STUDY DESIGN A randomized double-blind controlled trial among 242 low-income Peruvian women was performed. Beginning at 10 to 16 weeks' gestation, women received supplements containing 60 mg iron, 250 microg folic acid with or without 25 mg zinc. Fetal heart rat...

Fetal heart rate (FHR) was recorded and maternal blood pressure measured in 104 patients in whom lumbar epidural analgesia was induced in labour. Fifty-one patients received an intravenous load of 11 of Hartmann's solution immediately before the epidural injection. This infusion significantly reduced the incidence of abnormalities of FHR from 34% to 12% and of maternal hypotension from 28% to 2...