Multichannel fetal magnetocardiography using SQUID bootstrap circuit

Fetal magnetocardiography (MCG) is a sophisticated non-invasive technique for the fetal heart diagnosis. We constructed a multichannel fetal MCG system based on a novel superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) direct readout scheme called SQUID bootstrap circuit (SBC). The system incorporates four SBC gradiometers for the signal detection and three SBC magnetometers as the references. The fetal MCG signal at a 28-weeks’ gestation was measured. By the fetal MCG signal separation and average, the P-wave and QRS complex can be clearly identified. These results indicate that the SBC is one of the most promising techniques for the fetal MCG recordings.