An Improved Method of Long-Term Fetal Heart Sound Monitoring in High-Risk Pregnancies

Abstract

Current method for Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) monitoring relies heavily on Ultrasound Techniques. This has two important disadvantages; firstly, there are significant chances that long-term exposure to ultrasound may harm the unborn, and secondly, the ultrasound machines and its trained operators would prove to be an expensive proposition and could not be utilized for longer period of time. Because of these reasons, the existing instruments are not suitable for carrying out frequent and long-term measurement of FHR, which is highly recommended in high-risk pregnancies.

In this paper an alternative method for long-term FHR monitoring is proposed. With the help of a designed acoustic cone, sound wave guide and piezoelectric sensor, acoustic energy produced by fetal heart movement is detected from subject’s (mother’s) abdomen. An additional microphone is used to detect ambient noise, which will be used for adaptive digital filtering and noise cancellation from fetal heart sound wave. Both signals are subsequently filtered, amplified and recorded in a two-channel removable memory device. All these components were assembled in a low power portable electronic instrument to allow long term fetal surveillance. Later on, the recorded data is transferred to a personal computer where it is further digitized, filtered, analyzed and displayed. The designed instrument has been examined and tested in Government Hospital on women with gestation age between 28 to 41 weeks. The results showed that the technique is suitable and effective for long-term fetal heart sound monitoring.

Indexing tenns:

• Fetal monitoring
• Cardiotocography
• Cardiography
• Noise
• Heart rate

Additional information

Notes on contributors

A K Mittra

A K Mittra is working as Assistant Professor in the department of Electronics Engineering in Manoharbhai Patel Institute of Engineering & Technology, Gondia, India. He is Graduate in Electrical Engineering from GGD University Bilaspur and Post Graduated in Electronics and Control Engineering from BITS Pilani. He is pursuing his Doctoral Research from RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur. A K Mittra has vast experience in academic field and he has more than 20 research publications in various national and international conferences and journals. His area of research is Biomedical instrumentation, Biomedical signal processing and soft computing.

Anupam Shukla

Anupam Shukla is working as Associate Professor in the ITC department of ABV Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior, India. He obtained his BE, ME and PhD degree in Electronics from Ravishankar University Raipur. He was Head of Biomedical Engineering Department of National Institute of Technology Raipur and is having vast experience of teaching and research work.

A S Zadgaonkar

A S Zadgaonkar is presently working as Vice-Chancellor, Dr C V Raman University, Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh), Ex Director of Rungta College of Engineering & Technology Bhilai, India. He is BE Electrical, ME Electrical Machines, PhD Instrumentation, PhD Material Science and D Lit in Speech Recognition. He was Principal of Govt Engineering College Raipur and is having vast experience of teaching, administrative and of research work. He has contributed more than 300 research papers in various national, international conferences and journals. He holds patent of an electronic device developed by him and has been awarded with “Engineer of the year” award by the Institution of Engineers (India). He has many other awards to his credit.

N K Choudhary

N K Choudhary is working as Principal in BD College of Engineering, Sewagram, Wardha, India. He is BE Power Electronics, MTech Electronics and PhD in Electronics Engineering. He is having total 17 years of teaching, research and of administrative experience in various academic institutions. He has many research publications in various national and international conferences and journals. His research interests include: Digital Signal Processing, Soft Computing, Biomedical Signal Processing and Bio-informatics.