Extraction of Fetal ECG from Abdominal ECG and Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Non-invasive detection of fetal heart activity using abdominal electrocardiogram (AECG) is crucial for diagnosis as well as prognosis of heart defects. Most of the detection schemes proposed in the literature, however, require signals recorded either from both the mother’s thoracic and abdominal regions or only the mother’s abdomen but with multiple leads. The scheme proposed in the current study uses signals recorded from the mother’s abdomen by a single ECG lead for efficient maternal QRS detection, fetal ECG extraction and enhancement, as well as fetal heart rate variability analysis by combining spectral analysis techniques with selected filters. The algorithm has been tested on 20 non-invasively recorded abdominal signals from the MIT/physioNet database and the results found were very promising.

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