Extraction of fetal electrocardiogram and analysis of fetal heart rate variability in relation with uterine contraction signal

Abstract

The Fetal Electrocardiogram (FECG) signal provides information newlineabout the electrical activity of the fetal heart and confirms the health status of newlinethe fetus. The standard procedure to record Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) is newlineCardiotocography (CTG) which is based on subjective assessment of the newlineobtained records, and also it is not best suited for 24 hour monitoring. Hence newlinein this research, the abdominal electrode method is used to acquire uterine newlinecontraction signal and abdominal signal containing the fetal ECG by placing newlinean array of electrodes on the maternal abdomen in a totally non invasive newlinemanner. But this abdominal signal has a very low magnitude of fetal signal newlineand corrupted by noises like Maternal ECG (MECG), power line interference newlineand baseline wander due to respiration of the mother. Hence the extraction of newlineFECG alone from this complex signal and interpretation of its characteristics newlineis a difficult and challenging task. In this present work, a comparison of Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) variability with uterine contraction (UC) signal is needed to find the status of newlinethe fetus for which the simultaneous recording of abdominal signal and UC newlinesignal is necessary. To achieve this, the study protocol has been framed and newlinewas submitted to the Institutional Ethics Committee of Madras Medical newlineCollege, Chennai, India and the same was approved to collect the data from newlinepregnant women in the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology and newlineGovernment Hospital for Women and Children, Egmore, Chennai. newline newline