Team 22

Continuous Wearable Fetal Heart Rate Monitor

Team Members: Ally Coen
Amy Nystrom
Atlee Lieberg

Team Mentors: Bradley Greger, PhD - SBHSE
Apollo Arquiza, PhD - SBHSE
Susan Greger, MD

YouTube Link: View the video link below before joining the zoom meeting

Zoom Link: https://asu.zoom.us/j/82433209470

Abstract

Despite being one of the most developed countries in the world, 1 in 160 pregnancies in the United States end in stillbirth. 48% of these are late stillbirths, occurring at 28 weeks or later. These fatalities can occur during labor or during gestation, making unexpected fetal death a high concern for both Obstetric (OB) Physicians and expectant mothers. Currently, pregnant women are often advised to track fetal movements to check on the baby at home or use fetal dopplers. This allows parents to notify their physician if they expect something is wrong, leading potentially to an emergency c-section or labor induction. However, with this method, crises of fetal health are often discovered after it is too late. With a continuous wearable fetal heart rate (HR) monitor, abnormalities and discontinuation of fetal HR would not go unnoticed. Instead, a crisis would result in immediate professional medical evaluation and intervention. This rechargeable, battery operated device would monitor the HR of late term pregnancies through multiple sensors (including auditory and ECG) and distinguish fetal HR with signal processing algorithms. Through physical and virtual prototyping, we have been able to quantitatively demonstrate the efficacy of this algorithm and device with statistical significance. This device will not only allow ease of monitoring in hospital births, but also expand the ability to monitor fetal heart rate during birth to alternative birth centers and home births.