An Effective Technique for Enhancing an Intrauterine Catheter Fetal Electrocardiogram
- PDF / 1,718,282 Bytes
- 25 Pages / 600 x 792 pts Page_size
- 69 Downloads / 198 Views
An Effective Technique for Enhancing an Intrauterine Catheter Fetal Electrocardiogram Steven L. Horner Department of Electrical Engineering, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA Email: [email protected]
William M. Holls III University of Illinois, Provena Covenant Medical Center, 1400 West Park Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA Email: [email protected] Received 11 August 2001 and in revised form 20 August 2002 Physicians can obtain fetal heart rate, electrophysiological information, and uterine contraction activity for determining fetal status from an intrauterine catheters electrocardiogram with the maternal electrocardiogram canceled. In addition, the intrauterine catheter would allow physicians to acquire fetal status with one noninvasive to the fetus biosensor as compared to invasive to the fetus scalp electrode and intrauterine pressure catheter used currently. A real-time maternal electrocardiogram cancellation technique of the intrauterine catheters electrocardiogram will be discussed along with an analysis for the methods effectiveness with synthesized and clinical data. The positive results from an original detailed subjective and objective analysis of synthesized and clinical data clearly indicate that the maternal electrocardiogram cancellation method was found to be effective. The resulting intrauterine catheters electrocardiogram from effectively canceling the maternal electrocardiogram could be used for determining fetal heart rate, fetal electrocardiogram electrophysiological information, and uterine contraction activity. Keywords and phrases: fetal electrocardiogram, intrauterine catheter, scalp electrode, maternal electrocardiogram.
1.
INTRODUCTION
The invasive scalp electrode has proven to be a reliable technique for acquiring the fetal electrocardiogram (FECG) during delivery [1]. From the FECG, physicians can determine fetal heart rate (HR). The HR can then be used to monitor the status of the fetus. However, the scalp electrode is invasive to the mother and fetus, and also has limitations. One limitation includes risk of viral infection from the mother since there can be blood-to-blood contact. Furthermore, the scalp electrode cannot be modified with a pressure transducer to monitor maternal contractions. Currently, a scalp electrode and intrauterine pressure catheter are placed to monitor fetal HR and maternal contraction information, respectively [2]. Another FECG monitoring technique used during delivery includes the intrauterine catheter (IC) [2, 3]. The IC can be used to monitor fetal HR and electrophysiological information during delivery. Since the IC is noninvasive to the fetus but invasive to the mother, the catheter makes a nice alternative from the scalp electrode. Compared to the noninvasive abdominal-wall approach, the catheter is placed in close proximity to the fetus and can touch the fetus in some places [2, 4]. The adjacency allows for an increased
probability of obtaining a FECG with a favorable signalto-noise ratio (SNR). In addition, the FECG of the IC can be combined
Data Loading...
