The Open Medical Devices Journal

2012, 4 : 7-12
Published online 2012 May 31. DOI: 10.2174/1875181401204010007
Publisher ID: TOMDJ-4-7

Recent Advances in Fetal Electrocardiography

Yoshitaka Kimura , Naoaki Sato , Junichi Sugawara , Clarissa Velayo , Teturo Hoshiai , Satoru Nagase , Takuya Ito , Yukari Onuma , Asami Katsumata , Kunihiro Okamura and Nobuo Yaegashi
Institute for International Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, Tohoku University, Seiryo-cho 2-1, Sendai, 980-8575, Japan.

ABSTRACT

Since the first observations of Cremer in 1906, fetal electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements via the maternal abdominal wall have remained a formidable challenge for clinical technicians and engineers in the cutting-edge field of information theory. Previous obstacles in extracting fetal ECG still complicate their acquisition at the present. These include three main difficulties for non-invasive measurement of fetal ECG: first, the low signal to noise ratio; second, the lack of a standard lead system for fetal ECG on the maternal abdomen; and third, the factor of fetal movement or non-stationarity during recording. A new extraction system based on blind source separation with reference signals (BSSR) was utilized and our detection rates, both off-line (91%) and on-line (60%), in pregnancies of 20 to 41 weeks of gestation have shown a marked improvement from earlier attempts. With this development, we discuss the potentials and limitations of this new system.

Keywords:

Accuracy of fetal ECG, accuracy of traditional Doppler cardiotocogram, advanced fetal electrocardiography, fetal arrhythmia, fetal ECG waveform.