Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 13, Issue 5, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195728
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Funding
- UK Medical Research Council (MRC)/Imperial College Confidence in Concept Scheme
- European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (ERC) [336306]
- UK National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre based at Imperial College Healthcare National Health Service Trust
- Imperial College London
- Dyson Foundation
- UK Medical Research Council/ Imperial College Confidence in Concept Scheme
- UK Medical Research Council/ Imperial College Proof of Concept Scheme
- MRC [MC_PC_13064] Funding Source: UKRI
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Fetal movements (FM) are a key factor in clinical management of high-risk pregnancies such as fetal growth restriction. While maternal perception of reduced FM can trigger self-referral to obstetric services, maternal sensation is highly subjective. Objective, reliable monitoring of fetal movement patterns outside clinical environs is not currently possible. A wearable and non-transmitting system capable of sensing fetal movements over extended periods of time would be extremely valuable, not only for monitoring individual fetal health, but also for establishing normal levels of movement in the population at large. Wearable monitors based on accelerometers have previously been proposed as a means of tracking FM, but such systems have difficulty separating maternal and fetal activity and have not matured to the level of clinical use. We introduce a new wearable system based on a novel combination of accelerometers and bespoke acoustic sensors as well as an advanced signal processing architecture to identify and discriminate between types of fetal movements. We validate the system with concurrent ultrasound tests on a cohort of 44 pregnant women and demonstrate that the garment is capable of both detecting and discriminating the vigorous, whole-body 'startle' movements of a fetus. These results demonstrate the promise of multimodal sensing for the development of a low-cost, non-transmitting wearable monitor for fetal movements.
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