Development of a software for automaticanalysis of CTG recordings

The cardiotocography is employed for the assessment of foetal well-being by monitoring of foetal heart rate (FHR) at the end of pregnancy and during labour. The automatic analysis of cardiotocographic traces, through the development of software able to extract from the signals those parameters that are usually subjectively evaluated by medical staff, through visual inspection, can make surely a useful contribution to make the interpretation of cardiotocographic traces more objective and repeatable as possible. In this paper we describe the characteristics of a software developed to automatically analyze the CTG, which provides a numerical and objective assessment of parameters both "traditional" (accelerations, decelerations, presence and intensity of uterine contractions, etc.) and "new" (short term variability, concise indices computed with the dynamics symbols, etc..), in order to provide the physician with a wider range of parameters that can reliably support him in the difficult task of making the diagnosis of fetal well-being or distress.