Influence of gestation age on the performance of adaptive systems for fetal ECG extraction

Radana Kahankova,Janusz Jezewski,Aleksandra Kawala-Janik,Michal Jezewski,Jan Nedoma,Radek Martinek,Marcel Fajkus,He Wen

doi:10.15598/aeee.v15i3.2207

Abstract

The main aims of this paper are to study the influence of the Gestation Age (GA) on the quality of recorded abdominal ECG (aECG) signals and to evaluate the performance of the LMS and RLS adaptive signal processing algorithms in the extraction of the fetal ECG (fECG) signal component from such signals. This influence is quantified as a function of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Our research shows that these adaptive algorithms with optimized settings can successfully be applied to extract fECG signals from the maternal aECG signals as early as the 30th week of GA, hence addressing a limitation (37 weeks or labor) in commercially available monitoring systems. We demonstrate that before this gestational age, the SNR of the maternal aECG signal is too low for these adaptive algorithms to work effectively and produce satisfactory results.

Highlights

In today’s clinical practice, Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM) is commonly used during labor and delivery
According to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Guidelines, the main parameter for fetal hypoxia detection is the value of the fetal Heart Rate [1]
Even though adaptive signal processing algorithms have been used in some commercially available devices [11], they are mainly designed for women who are at term. Recognizing this commercial limitation, we aim to show that adaptive signal processing algorithms, once properly designed and implemented, offer the potential to be effectively used to extract fetal ECG (fECG) signals at an earlier gestational age

Summary

Introduction

In today’s clinical practice, Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM) is commonly used during labor and delivery. The most widely used technology for fHR monitoring is the noninvasive Doppler Ultrasound Method because it is both simple and economical As this method employs ultrasound to detect the fetal heart rate, it is significantly influenced by fetal and maternal movement artifacts and is susceptible to reliability and accuracy issues. Other issues include the fact c 2017 ADVANCES IN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING that the fHR may be interpreted as the mHR ( called "Signal Ambiguity" [2]) This ambiguity could result in the false negative or false positive diagnosis of fetal hypoxia and pose a danger to the unborn child or misguide the clinical staff to initiate an unnecessary cesarean section due to the absence of reassuring fetal heart rate tracings

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