A method for segmenting and measuring anatomical structures in fetal ultrasound images includes the steps of providing a digitized ultrasound image of a fetus comprising a plurality of intensities corresponding to a domain of points on a 3-dimensional grid, providing a plurality of classifiers trained to detect anatomical structures in said image of said fetus, and segmenting and measuring an anatomical structure using said image classifiers by applying said elliptical contour classifiers to said fetal ultrasound image, wherein a plurality of 2-dimensional contours characterizing said anatomical structure are detected. The anatomical structure measurement can be combined with measurement of another anatomical structure to estimate gestational age of the fetus.