Computer extraction of information on contractions and emergency conditions from the intrauterine pressure

In this paper we describe the problems and solutions involved in getting the controlling computer in the system described in [1] to derive the necessary information about contractions and emergency conditions from the intrauterine pressure input. The required information in this case includes the detection and classification of contractions, the continuously-updated evaluation of the resting baseline tone, and the detection of emergency conditions such as excessively high intrauterine pressure, constant intrauterine pressure, the occurrence of series of contractions closely following each other whose amplitude are all exceedingly high or all exceedingly low. In extracting this information, the computer has to cope with problems of noise, both noise inherent in the monitoring system and that due to patient movement.