System and method for utilizing a single ultrasound imaging device to simultaneously measure a maternal heart rate and fetal heart rates of multiple fetuses

An ultrasound system, comprising:

• a transducer, comprising;
• a flexible substrate;
• and
• an array of transducer elements disposed on the flexible substrate and configured to be disposed on an abdomen of a subject having one or more fetuses disposed within a single uterus and to acquire scan data for determining a respective fetal heart rate of each fetus of the one or more fetuses based on the scan data;
• and
• a processor coupled to the transducer and configured to provide signals to the transducer to cause different subsets of the array of transducer elements to sequentially fire for capturing a B-mode dataset, to receive the B-mode dataset, and to perform segmentation of regions of interest utilizing inter-frame motion estimation metrics to determine a respective location of each fetus of the one or more fetuses based on the B-mode dataset.

A method for simultaneously monitoring fetal heart rate in a plurality of fetuses in a uterus, comprising:

• providing, via a processor, signals to a single transducer to cause different subsets of transducer elements of the single transducer to sequentially capture scan data, wherein the single transducer comprises a flexible substrate and a flexible array having the transducer elements disposed on the flexible substrate, and wherein providing the signals to the single transducer comprises providing the signals to the single transducer to cause the different subsets of the transducer elements to sequentially capture sub-aperture full matrix capture (FMC) data;
• receiving, at the processor, the scan data and the sub-aperture FMC data;
• determining a respective location of each fetus of the plurality of fetuses based on the scan data, wherein determining the respective location comprises performing total focusing method reconstruction to determine the respective location of each fetus of the plurality of fetuses based on the sub-aperture FMC data;
• applying, via the processor, Doppler shifts to the scan data;
• and
• determining, via the processor, a respective fetal heart rate of each fetus of the plurality of fetuses based on the scan data with the Doppler shifts applied.