Affordable Diagnostic Infused Thermal Incubator

Abstract

Preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death among infants with most of the deaths occurring in developing nations. 20,000,000 premature Babies are born each year and 4,000,000 babies die within their first day of their life. Neonatal incubators are very limited and unavailable in rural areas. Preterm birth children are more susceptible to critical conditions like Hypoxia and Apnea. Risky methods like use of incandescent bulbs are used in rural Primary healthcare centres. Long term vitals monitoring is really uncomfortable in existing systems. Our solution is a novel diagnostics enabled body warmer which would continuously monitor parameters such as Respiration Rate, SPO2, ECG and temperature of the body. The bodysuit consists of fabric based resistive filaments that safely provide warmth to the neonate as due to preterm birth body fat is miniscule. The heating is carefully controlled and will use PID control for accurate temperature control. The oxygen saturation in blood is measured in the earlobe. Hypoxemia and Apnea can be detected early using Respiration and Blood Oxygenation data to trigger alerts. The device can potentially be the only incubation system in remote village where standard incubators may not present.