Quantitative analysis of fetal rate: its application in antepartum clinical monitoring and behavioural pattern recognition

A system based on an IBM compatible personal computer is described for the computerized analysis of the cardiotocograms. The system performs a quantification of both fetal heart rate and uterine contractions providing automatically several variables including heart rate baseline; number, duration and area of accelerations and decelerations; latency time between decelerations and uterine contractions; uterine resting tone; number, duration and area of contractions. The computerized description was compared to the visual analysis of the cardiotocogram and a good agreement was evidenced. This system was applied to the analysis of heart rate variability in order to recognize the different patterns characterizing fetal behavioral states. Up to now, however, the results obtained in this latter application are not sufficiently accurate and do not allow a reliable automatic recognition of heart rate patterns.