Preterm Labor Monitoring using IoT based Wearable Tocometer System

In this work, an attempt has been made to monitor preterm labor in pregnant women using IoT based wearable tocometer system. Preterm labor is the leading cause of death in prematurely born babies due to lack of neonatal healthcare services in rural areas. Uterine muscle contraction often varies over the gestational period and it increases exponentially during the time of labor. For pregnant women, monitoring the activity of the uterus is a challenging task since there are often indications of false labor pain. The proposed system consists of an accelerometer and vibration sensor detect the uterine contractions. The signals are sent to Arduino wherein the normal and abnormal threshold are predefined. In case of abnormal contractions, the Arduino sends alert notification to the emergency contacts via Short Message Service (SMS) using Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) along with the location information of the individual using Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking. The device also sends emergency alert to the nearby hospital so that both maternal and neonatal care services are provided at the earliest. The uterine activity is also displayed as values in Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The initial Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) design was carried out in Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor (EAGLE) software and then implemented in hardware. Compared to the conventional Cardiotocography (CTG) machines, this wearable system could provide continuous remote monitoring in case of high risk pregnancies in a cost efficient manner eliminating the frequent hospital visits during false labor alerts. Hence, this system could assist the clinicians in monitoring preterm labor in pregnant women.