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Main Authors: Engan, Kjersti, Kanwal, Neel, Yeconia, Anita, Blacy, Ladislaus, Munyaw, Yuda, Mduma, Estomih, Ersdal, Hege
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.29695
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author Engan, Kjersti
Kanwal, Neel
Yeconia, Anita
Blacy, Ladislaus
Munyaw, Yuda
Mduma, Estomih
Ersdal, Hege
author_facet Engan, Kjersti
Kanwal, Neel
Yeconia, Anita
Blacy, Ladislaus
Munyaw, Yuda
Mduma, Estomih
Ersdal, Hege
contents Approximately 10% of newborns require assistance to initiate breathing at birth, and around 5% need ventilation support. Fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring plays a crucial role in assessing fetal well-being during prenatal care, enabling the detection of abnormal patterns and supporting timely obstetric interventions to mitigate fetal risks during labor. Applying artificial intelligence (AI) methods to analyze large datasets of continuous FHR monitoring episodes with diverse outcomes may offer novel insights into predicting the risk of needing breathing assistance or interventions. Recent advances in wearable FHR monitors have enabled continuous fetal monitoring without compromising maternal mobility. However, sensor displacement during maternal movement, as well as changes in fetal or maternal position, often lead to signal dropout, resulting in gaps in recorded FHR data. Such missing data limits the extraction of meaningful insights and complicates automated (AI-based) analysis. Traditional approaches to handling missing data, such as simple interpolation techniques, often fail to preserve the spectral characteristics of the signals. In this paper, we propose a masked transformer-based autoencoder approach to reconstruct missing FHR signals by capturing both local temporal and frequency components of the data. The proposed method demonstrates robustness across varying durations of missing data and can be used for signal inpainting and forecasting. The proposed approach can be applied retrospectively to research datasets to support the development of AI-based risk algorithms. In the future, the proposed method could be integrated into wearable FHR monitoring devices to achieve earlier and more robust risk detection.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_29695
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FHRFormer: A Self-Supervised Masked Transformer Framework for Fetal Heart Rate Time-Series Inpainting and Forecasting
Engan, Kjersti
Kanwal, Neel
Yeconia, Anita
Blacy, Ladislaus
Munyaw, Yuda
Mduma, Estomih
Ersdal, Hege
Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Machine Learning
Probability
Approximately 10% of newborns require assistance to initiate breathing at birth, and around 5% need ventilation support. Fetal heart rate (FHR) monitoring plays a crucial role in assessing fetal well-being during prenatal care, enabling the detection of abnormal patterns and supporting timely obstetric interventions to mitigate fetal risks during labor. Applying artificial intelligence (AI) methods to analyze large datasets of continuous FHR monitoring episodes with diverse outcomes may offer novel insights into predicting the risk of needing breathing assistance or interventions. Recent advances in wearable FHR monitors have enabled continuous fetal monitoring without compromising maternal mobility. However, sensor displacement during maternal movement, as well as changes in fetal or maternal position, often lead to signal dropout, resulting in gaps in recorded FHR data. Such missing data limits the extraction of meaningful insights and complicates automated (AI-based) analysis. Traditional approaches to handling missing data, such as simple interpolation techniques, often fail to preserve the spectral characteristics of the signals. In this paper, we propose a masked transformer-based autoencoder approach to reconstruct missing FHR signals by capturing both local temporal and frequency components of the data. The proposed method demonstrates robustness across varying durations of missing data and can be used for signal inpainting and forecasting. The proposed approach can be applied retrospectively to research datasets to support the development of AI-based risk algorithms. In the future, the proposed method could be integrated into wearable FHR monitoring devices to achieve earlier and more robust risk detection.
title FHRFormer: A Self-Supervised Masked Transformer Framework for Fetal Heart Rate Time-Series Inpainting and Forecasting
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science
Machine Learning
Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.29695