title: Influence of electrode placement on signal quality for ambulatory pregnancy monitoring.
abstract: Noninvasive fetal health monitoring during pregnancy has become increasingly important in order to prevent complications, such as fetal hypoxia and preterm labor. With recent advances in signal processing technology using abdominal electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings, ambulatory fetal monitoring throughout pregnancy is now an important step closer to becoming feasible. The large number of electrodes required in current noise-robust solutions, however, leads to high power consumption and reduced patient comfort. In this paper, requirements for reliable fetal monitoring using a minimal number of electrodes are determined based on simulations and measurement results. To this end, a dipole-based model is proposed to simulate different electrode positions based on standard recordings. Results show a significant influence of bipolar lead orientation on maternal and fetal ECG measurement quality, as well as a significant influence of interelectrode distance for all signals of interest.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Rooijakkers
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rabotti
authors.affiliation: Máxima Medical Center, 5504 DB Veldhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Oei
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J W M
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Bergmans
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cantatore
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Technology Eindhoven, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mischi
mesh_terms: D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D004566:Electrodes; D005260:Female; D005323:Fetal Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory; D009038:Motion; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000473:pathology; D011247:Pregnancy; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio