Development of a Home-based Fetal Electrocardiogram (ECG) Monitoring System.

Abstract

We develop a novel wearable fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) monitoring system consisting of an abdominal patch that communicates with a smart device. The system has two main components: the fetal patch and the monitoring app. The fetal patch has electronics and recording electrodes fabricated on a hybrid flexible-rigid platform while the Android app is developed for a wide range of applications. The patch collects the abdominal ECG (aECG) signals that are sent to the smart device app via secure Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication. The app software connects to a cloud server where processing and extraction algorithms are executed for real-time fECG extraction and fetal heartrate (fHR) calculation from the collected raw data. We have validated the algorithms and real-time data recordings on pregnant subjects yielding promising results. Our system has the potential to transform the currently used fetal monitoring system to an effective distanced and telematernity care.