To compare intrapartum cardiotocographic (CTG) recording with conventional intermittent fetal heart auscultation during labor

Standard evaluation of fetal well-being during labor includes the periodic assessment of the fetal heart rate (FHR), its pattern and response to intrapartum stimuli and events. Effective methods of evaluation and meaningful interpretation of FHR data range from non-invasive techniques like Intermittent Auscultation, continuous electronic fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring to invasive techniques of fetal blood gas analysis and fetal ECG

Chorioamnionitis: Association of Nonreassuring Fetal Heart-rate Patterns and Interval From Diagnosis to Delivery on Neonatal Outcome

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether selected fetal heart-rate (FHR) patterns and the interval from diagnosis to delivery in pregnancies complicated by chorioamnionitis could predict neonatal outcome

FIGO consensus guidelines on intrapartum fetal monitoring: Intermittent auscultation

Intermittent auscultation is the technique used to listen to the fetal heart rate (FHR) for short periods of time without a display of the resulting pattern. Whether it is used for intrapartum fetal monitoring in low-risk women or for all cases in settings where there are no available alternatives, all healthcare professionals attending labor and delivery need to be skilled at performing intermittent auscultation, interpreting its findings, and taking appropriate action. The main aim of this chapter is to describe the tools and techniques for intermittent auscultation in labor

COVID-19 and pregnancy: the fruitful experience of the university hospital of Tangier Morocco with hydroxychloroquine and anti-retroviral treatment

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the emerging virus, severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization as a global public health emergency. Since the first case of COVID-19 was declared the Moroccan government set up drastic preventative measures to deal with the spread of the virus such as compulsory containment, telework, distance education, use of masks in public places, and many other preventive measures. Pregnant women require special attention in relation to prevention, diagnosis and management. We herein reported a prospective observational study that aims to evaluate the security and effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine on pregnant women with corona virus disease. Our study is a prospective study performed in the three hospitals specialized on corona virus disease 2019 in tangier morocco. We included pregnant women hospitalized with COVID-19 and reproductive-aged. Most cases took the hydroxychloroquine treatment. The maternal outcomes under hydroxychloroquine appear good in most cases for both mother and child and seemed to be safe according to several studies on its use for rheumatic diseases. In the absence of more robust data, this treatment might be best practice in countries that can’t afford the expensive antiviral treatment in this outbreak especially in emergency situations

Classification of Cardiotocography Data with WEKA

Cardiotocography (CTG) records fetal heart rate (FHR) and uterine contractions (UC) simultaneously. Cardiotocography trace patterns help doctors to understand the state of the fetus. Even after the introduction of cardiotocograph, the capacity to predict is still inaccurate. This paper evaluates some commonly used classification methods using WEKA. Precision,Recall, F-Measrue and ROC curve have been used as the metric to evaluate the performance of classifiers. As opposed to some of the earlier research works that were unable to identify Suspicious and Pathologic patterns, the results obtained from the study in this paper could precisely identify pathologic and Suspicious cases. Best results were obtained from J48, Random Forest and Classification via Regression

Extracting fetal heart beats from maternal abdominal recordings: Selection of the optimal principal components

This study presents a systematic comparison of different approaches to the automated selection of the principal components (PC) which optimise the detection of maternal and fetal heart beats from non-invasive maternal abdominal recordings. A public database of 75 4-channel non-invasive maternal abdominal recordings was used for training the algorithm. Four methods were developed and assessed to determine the optimal PC: (1) power spectral distribution, (2) root mean square, (3) sample entropy, and (4) QRS template. The sensitivity of the performance of the algorithm to large-amplitude noise removal (by wavelet de-noising) and maternal beat cancellation methods were also assessed. The accuracy of maternal and fetal beat detection was assessed against reference annotations and quantified using the detection accuracy score F1 [2*PPV*Se / (PPV + Se)], sensitivity (Se), and positive predictive value (PPV). The best performing implementation was assessed on a test dataset of 100 recordings and the agreement between the computed and the reference fetal heart rate (fHR) and fetal RR (fRR) time series quantified. The best performance for detecting maternal beats (F1 99.3%, Se 99.0%, PPV 99.7%) was obtained when using the QRS template method to select the optimal maternal PC and applying wavelet de-noising. The best performance for detecting fetal beats (F1 89.8%, Se 89.3%, PPV 90.5%) was obtained when the optimal fetal PC was selected using the sample entropy method and utilising a fixed-length time window for the cancellation of the maternal beats. The performance on the test dataset was 142.7 beats2/min2 for fHR and 19.9 ms for fRR, ranking respectively 14 and 17 (out of 29) when compared to the other algorithms presented at the Physionet Challenge 2013

The Ultrasonography Examination of Fetal Heart Beats as the Application of Mechanic Waves Principle

In this study, a direct observation was carried out on pregnant women in several months of pregnancy by detecting fetal age, fetal length, fetal weight, and normal reactivity of fetal heart beats on ultrasonography. Ultrasonography is a tool that applies the working principle of vibration and waves to the world of health in which mechanical waves that require a medium to propagate. The results showed that the condition of fetal age two to three months in early pregnancy, the transducer on ultrasonography is difficult to detect the weight and length of the fetus. It is mainly because the propagation medium is still tiny, but in conditions of fetal age at four to nine months, the transducer on ultrasonography is able to detect the weight value and fetal length displayed on the ultrasound monitor screen. Therefore, it can be concluded that the working principle of mechanical waves in ultrasonography is one of the developments in physics in the world of technology

A review of congenital heart block

Congenital heart block is a rare disorder. It has an incidence of about 1 in 22,000 live births. It may be associated with high mortality and morbidity. This should generate a high index of suspicion for early diagnosis and aggressive therapy when appropriate. The congenital heart block associated with neonatal lupus is considered a form of passively acquired autoimmune disease in which maternal autoantibodies to the intracellular ribonucleoproteins Ro (SS-A) and La (SS-B), cross the placenta and injure the previously normal fetal heart. Women with serum titers of anti-Ro antibody carry a 3% risk of having a child with neonatal lupus syndrome. Recurrence rates are about 18%. We believe that serial echocardiograms should be acquired so that early diagnosis is made and aggressive therapy administered, if signs of conduction system disease such as PR interval prolongation by Doppler are found, so as to optimize the outcome. Establishment of guidelines for therapy have been set empirically, should signs of congenital heart block develop. Those patients whose congenital heart block is associated with structural heart disease have a higher morbidity and mortality, which is determined more by the underlying structural congenital heart disease than it is by the need for a pacemaker per se.peer-reviewe