Non-invasive Fetal Electrocardiography for Intrapartum Cardiotocography

Frontiers in Pediatrics

article

Rik Vullings¹  Judith O. E. H. van Laar³ 

[1] Biomedical Diagnostics Lab Eindhoven, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology;Nemo Healthcare;Máxima Medical Center

关键词: electrophysiology;    cardiotocography;    fetal heart rate;    fetal electrocardiogram;    signal processing;    artificial intelligence;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fped.2020.599049

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Fetal monitoring is important to diagnose complications that can occur during pregnancy. If detected timely, these complications might be resolved before they lead to irreversible damage. Current fetal monitoring mainly relies on cardiotocography, the simultaneous registration of fetal heart rate and uterine activity. Unfortunately, the technology to obtain the cardiotocogram has limitations. In current clinical practice the fetal heart rate is obtained via either an invasive scalp electrode, that poses risks and can only be applied during labor and after rupture of the fetal membranes, or via non-invasive Doppler ultrasound technology that is inaccurate and suffers from loss of signal, in particular in women with high body mass, during motion, or in preterm pregnancies. In this study, transabdominal electrophysiological measurements are exploited to provide fetal heart rate non-invasively and in a more reliable manner than Doppler ultrasound. The performance of the fetal heart rate detection is determined by comparing the fetal heart rate to that obtained with an invasive scalp electrode during intrapartum monitoring. The performance is gauged by comparing it to performances mentioned in literature on Doppler ultrasound and on two commercially-available devices that are also based on transabdominal fetal electrocardiography.

【 授权许可】

CC BY