Framework to monitor pregnant women with a high risk of premature labour using sensor networks

Abstract

Premature birth is the leading cause of death in children under 5 years. Furthermore, surviving children can have a lifetime of disability such as hearing and vision loss or learning difficulties. Research suggests that monitoring uterine contractions can help in evaluating the health and progress of pregnancy, and also determine if the pregnant woman is in labour, and consequently mitigate the effects of premature labour. In this paper, we propose a safe, simple and low-cost system to monitor pregnant women who are at high risk of premature labour. Our system consists of a wireless body sensor network to non-invasively monitor the uterine contractions and trigger a warning via a smartphone if the readings are outside the normal thresholds. We have designed a proof-of-concept prototype and tested it for reliability, performance and power consumption.