An algorithm for fetal heart rate detection using wavelet transform

This research work proposes an algorithm to extract fetal heart rate from an ECG measured of the mother´s abdomen. The abdominal ECG is a composite signal because it contains both the mother´s and the fetus´ ECG signals, but the chest ECG is supposed to have only maternal (MECG) component. Since past, lots of research work have been perform in this field. Some of these are threshold and filtering method, neural network method and others. The algorithm consists of two steps: first, ECG of fetus is extracted from the original signal using wavelet transform then the fetal R peaks are located using threshold free detection method that involves RR moving interval, calculated on the basis of normal maximum and minimum heart rate. This algorithm is implemented using MATLAB. The method is validated using 20 recorded data. The average sensitivity and average positive predictivity of the detection method are 97.88% and 97.06% respectively.