Development of an adviser system for foetal diagnosis during labour

The expert system FOETOS is designed to aid diagnosis and prognosis of foetal condition during the nonstress test, foetal biophysical profiling, the contraction stress test, labour and the immediate neonatal period. Its action during labour to generate the following information is described: (1) characteristics, aetiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic advice concerning the state of the foetus; (2) etiology and therapeutic advice concerning delivery problems; (3) recommendations concerning possible foetal blood pH measurements, and interpretation of the results; and (4) the Bishop´s test score (from cervical dilation, cervical effacement, foetal station, cervical consistency, and cervical position data). FOETOS is supported by an IBM-XT-based conventional monitoring system which acquires foetal heart rate and uterine pressure signals from a cardiotocograph connected to the patient and extracts the parameters later required by FOETOS. FOETOS has been built using the knowledge engineering tool GENIE.<>