A method for detecting fetal anatomic features in ultrasound images includes providing an ultrasound image of a fetus, specifying an anatomic feature to be detected in a region S determined by parameter vector θ, providing a sequence of probabilistic boosting tree classifiers, each with a pre-specified height and number of nodes. Each classifier computes a posterior probability P(y|S) where yε{−1,+1}, with P(y=+1|S) representing a probability that region S contains the feature, and P(y=−1|S) representing a probability that region S contains background information. The feature is detected by uniformly sampling a parameter space of parameter vector θ using a first classifier with a sampling interval vector used for training said first classifier, and having each subsequent classifier classify positive samples identified by a preceding classifier using a smaller sampling interval vector used for training said preceding classifier. Each classifier forms a union of its positive samples with those of the preceding classifier.