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Nonlinear analysis of fetal heart rate

Abstract:

Objective: To evaluate the behavior of the fetal frequency cardiac through nonlinear analysis in healthy fetuses and with intrauterine growth restriction. Setting: Unidad de Perinatología, Departamento Clínico Integral de la Costa, Escuela de Medicina y Departamento de Matemáticas, Facultad de Ciencias y Tecnología, Universidad de Carabobo. Methods: This work is an observational, analytical investigation, of cross-section; 60 registries of the fetal heart rate of 40 normal fetuses and 20 intrauterine growth restricted fetuses between 30 and 42 gestation weeks were analyzed. Each registry in paper of the fetal heart rate became to digital format; in the search of the possible complex behavior of each monitoring records was applied the asymmetry of the reverse time and the maximum exponent of Lyapunov. The chaotic behavior of each one of them by means of the dimension of correlations was quantified (D2). Results: Was given the complexity of the fetal heart rate records; the correlation dimension of intrauterine growth restricted fetuses (0.90 ± 0.03), was lower than of the normal fetuses (0.93 ± 0.02) proving its statistical significance (P = 0.002). Conclusion: The correlation dimension diminished in intrauterine growth restricted fetuses indicates that the regulation of its cardiac dynamics is less complex, probably is limited the integrity of the cardiovascular control and therefore its capacity of adaptation to external or internal noxas, establishing that the nonlinear analysis allows differentiating the healthy fetuses from intrauterine growth restricted fetuses.