A Non-Invasive Multi-Parameter System for Feto-Maternal Well-Being Assessment and Telemonitoring

This study describes the feto-maternal care unit (FMCU), a real-time, stand-alone, non-invasive monitoring system that analyzes physiological signals collected from pregnant women both during and after labor to identify the health of the fetus and the mother. The FMCU is a prototype multichannel device made up of multiple biomedical sensors that are affixed to the body of expectant mother. These sensors gather physiological signals in real-time, including uterine contractions, fetal movement, heart rate, and respiration rate of the mother. A data acquisition device (NI myRIO) wirelessly records these fluctuations, which are then sent to a computer running NI LabVIEW software for additional sophisticated signal processing, feature extraction, and feto-maternal wellbeing assessment. As the proposed system is built on a wireless client-server architecture, it can collect and send data from several patients at once. An android application that runs on the internet is also designed to help patients synchronize their health data directly to the cloud, where a licensed doctor can access it for additional advanced diagnostics and consultation. Because the technology is non-invasive, affordable, and simple to use, pregnant women living in remote or impoverished locations can benefit from home-based health telemonitoring and avoid making frequent trips to a far-off clinic.