Textronic Solutions Used for Premature Babies: A Review

Abstract

Premature birth is considered to be a substantial problem in perinatal medicine, which in the vast majority of cases (>60%), concerns African and South Asian countries. Nevertheless, prematurity is a global problem and is faced by both less-developed (where 12% of babies are prematurely born) and well-developed countries (with 9% prematurity rate) [1, 2]. The percentage of children born prematurely, i.e., before the 37th week of pregnancy, was 8.7% in Europe, while, in Poland, it was 7.34% [3]. Care of prematurely born babies is a huge challenge for parents and medical staff in the neonatal intensive care unit. Preterm infants, because of their low weight and gestational age, are prone to health problems and even death. For this reason, continuous monitoring of health parameters plays an important role. It is achieved by the use of various sensors that are inserted in infants’ garments. Sensor systems monitor an infant’s health condition, and then the data are transmitted to doctors or parents. This article is for illustrative purposes, aimed at presenting solutions such as the use of sensors for monitoring infants’ physiological parameters.

Keywords

• wearable sensors for infants
• textronics
• smart clothing
• health monitoring
• neonatal monitoring
• wearable sensors