Development of methods for quantitative analysis of the fetal heart rate.

A description is given of the development of methods for the quantitative analysis of measurements of the fetal heart rate, uterine pressure and fetal movements, with data collection, reduction and analysis via a digital cassette off-line, or on-line. The on-line system consists of a small microprocessor, which reduces and digitizes the data, and which passes it for display and analysis to a larger microprocessor (NASCOM Z80). Analysis on-line offers the opportunity of interaction to optimise record quality and to compare at once sequential records on the same patient.