Wearable Sensors for Foetal Movement Monitoring in Low Risk Pregnancies

• Autor(a) principal: Borges, Luís M.
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Outros Autores: Araújo, Pedro, Lebres, António S., Rente, Andreia, Salvado, Rita, Velez, Fernando J., Martinez-de-Oliveira, J., Barroca, Norberto, Ferro, João Miguel
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/14371
• topic: Smart textiles; Hierarchical wireless communications; WSAN; Telemedicine; Foetal healthcare

In low risk pregnancies, the continuous monitoring of the foetal health is based on traditional protocols for counting the foetal movements felt by the mother. Although the maternal perception is a relevant characteristic for the evaluation of the foetal health, this kind of monitoring is hard to accomplish and being subjective can induce into errors due to mother’s anxiety and lack of concentration. Furthermore, the majority of foetal fatalities occur during the last weeks of low risk pregnancies. Therefore, it is important to obtain a universal electronic obstetric tracing, allowing for the identification of sudden changes in the foetus health, by continuously monitoring the foetus movements. The Smart-Clothing project aim has been the development of easy-to-wear belts with a telemedicine system for this purpose. One of the tried solutions is the Flex sensor belt system, which guarantees real-time and continuous foetal monitoring while creating effective interfaces for querying sensor data and store all the medical record (which can later be accessed by health professionals). Another developed belt has piezoelectric sensors incorporated onto it. The piezoelectric sensor belt has shown a high capacity to detect foetal movements, isolating them from external interferences.