The fetal electrocardiogram by independent component analysis and wavelets

Once the fetal electrocardiogram (FECG) waveforms from ECG on the maternal abdomen are detected, the fetal P wave and T wave cannot always be identified by using continuous wavelet transform (CWT). We took noninvasive FECG from the maternal abdomen, extracted it from the maternal electrocardiogram waveforms after an Independent Component Analysis (ICA), and identified the features of those waveforms by using CWT. We also simultaneously analyzed the observed signals by Primary Component Analysis (PCA). FECG has been extracted by ICA from 25 of 30 pregnant women. The fetal P wave and T wave could be identified in 21 of the 25 cases. FECG was extracted by PCA in only one case. ICA is superior to PCA, whose separation quality highly depends on the careful positioning of the electrodes. We believe that after ICA, FECG obtained by the wavelet theory based method will become a powerful tool for the differential diagnosis of fetal arrhythmias.