Estimation and classification of fetal heart rate baselines using artificial neural networks

FHR ("Fetal Heart Rate") signals analysis is an important diagnostic tool in the assessment of the fetus\´s well being. One of the most important FHR features is its baseline. Visual evaluation of FHR baseline reveals however a large inter and intraobserver variability. Here, a new FHR base line determination method using artificial neural networks (ANN) is presented. Two base line determination methods with multilayer perceptron ANNs (namely base line estimation and base line classification) are described and compared based on their practical application results.<>