An improved method of, and apparatus for, ultrasound examination to extract fetal characteristics

There is provided a method of performing ultrasound examination of a fetus in utero, the method comprising the steps of: a) acquiring a plurality of ultrasound images of the fetus in utero using an ultrasound imaging apparatus, the ultrasound images comprising image data representative of the anatomical structure and appearance of a head, an abdomen and a femur of a fetus in utero; b) utilising, on a computing system, a plurality of sets of the ultrasound images in an ensemble machine learning model comprising one or more neural networks to determine an estimated fetal weight and generate an associated uncertainty estimate for the estimated fetal weight; c) providing, based on the uncertainty estimate, a notification to the operator of the ultrasound imaging apparatus in respect of one or more parameters indicative of the accuracy of one or more of the obtained ultrasound images.