Discriminating normal from "abnormal" pregnancy cases using an automated FHR evaluation method

Abstract

Electronic fetal monitoring has become the gold standard for fetal assessment both during pregnancy as well as during delivery. Even though electronic fetal monitoring has been introduced to clinical practice more than forty years ago, there is still controversy in its usefulness especially due to the high inter- and intra-observer variability. Therefore the need for a more reliable and consistent interpretation has prompted the research community to investigate and propose various automated methodologies. In this work we propose the use of an automated method for the evaluation of fetal heart rate, the main monitored signal, which is based on a data set, whose labels/annotations are determined using a mixture model of clinical annotations. The successful results of the method suggest that it could be integrated into an assistive technology during delivery. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.