Assessment of Fetal and Maternal Well-Being During Pregnancy Using Passive Wearable Inertial Sensor

TL;DR

This paper presents a wearable belt with a single accelerometer to continuously monitor fetal and maternal health, offering a safe, comfortable, and minimally supervised solution that captures vital information often missed by traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel passive wearable device capable of simultaneous fetal and maternal health monitoring using a single accelerometer, suitable for extended use.

Findings

Feasible simultaneous measurement of maternal respiration and fetal movement.

Device remains effective despite mild interferences during long-term use.

Potential for improved continuous health monitoring in pregnancy.

Abstract

Assessing the health of both the fetus and mother is vital in preventing and identifying possible complications in pregnancy. This paper focuses on a device that can be used effectively by the mother herself with minimal supervision and provide a reasonable estimation of fetal and maternal health while being safe, comfortable, and easy to use. The device proposed uses a belt with a single accelerometer over the mother's uterus to record the required information. The device is expected to monitor both the mother and the fetus constantly over a long period and provide medical professionals with useful information, which they would otherwise overlook due to the low frequency that health monitoring is carried out at the present. The paper shows that simultaneous measurement of respiratory information of the mother and fetal movement is in fact possible even in the presence of mild interferences, which needs to be accounted for if the device is expected to be worn for extended times.