CHAOS THEORY AND POWER SPECTRUM ANALYSIS IN COMPUTERIZED CARDIOTOCOGRAPHY

Power spectrum and chaos theory analysis, methods recently applied to fetal surveillance, may offer an effective tool for recognising fetal hypoxia and consequential collapse of fetal homeostasis earlier than a t present. However, strict continuity and high precision of input data is an indispensable prerequisite. If one overlooks this requirement t he results may be misleading. The aim of the present work was to find a method that provides strictly continuous and highly precise beat-to- beat FHR data values. It was found that only the determination of hear t beat intervals between successive R peaks, using the digital FECG re cording technique developed here, meets the necessary requirements for power spectrum and chaos theory analysis. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science I reland Ltd.