A new tiny device is set to run rings around traditional ultrasounds, making the process much easier for both doctors and expectant mums to monitor the fetus.
Researchers have unveiled a wearable device that can monitor a baby’s heart rate, all from the comfort of the mother’s home.
“Its a sticker, like a band aid it goes on a tummy and a disc attaches to that sticker and then it wirelessly transmits the fetal heartbeat to either a smartphone or computer,” researcher Dr Fiona Brownfoot told Nine News.
Expectant mums could even apply it themselves at home, removing the need to go to hospital because a clinician can monitor the baby from afar.
“It can pick up baby’s heart rate without needing to adjust the sensors at all,” Dr Emerson Keenan told Nine News.
New mum Jennifer Burgess says the device would have made her pregnancy journey less stressful.
Her baby, Lily Rose arrived early, at 33 weeks, after a complicated pregnancy.
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Burgess needed to go to hospital for ultrasound monitoring twice a week after being admitted to hospital at 24 weeks with “quite heavy bleeding”.
These sessions were often long and uncomfortable.
“The day before Lily was born I was strapped down for seven hours continuously,” Burgess told Nine News.
Researchers have been developing the technology for six years.
Their goal is to change a “devastating” statistic, with one in 140 pregnancies ending in a stillbirth.
The device has just received funding from the University of Melbourne to take it to the next stage of clinical trials, with hopes it will be ready for patient use in two years.
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