Medical Device Prototype
Fetal Heart Monitor
for Use in Low-Resource Settings
Fetal heartbeat is often used to assess the condition of the fetus in utero. Heart rates significantly outside a normal range are indicative of fetal distress that requires immediate medical attention. However, continuous fetal heart monitoring is expensive and complex; in low-resource settings this service is reserved for high-risk patients, so changes in fetal heart rate often go unnoticed, leading to debilitating complications.
On a team of four engineering students, I helped to addressing this challenge by designing an affordable and accessible device that continuously monitors fetal heart rate and alerts medical staff should fetal heart rate reach dangerous levels outside the normal range.
User requirements – stated and latent – were determined after gathering information from multiple stakeholders (doctors, nurses, pregnant mothers, and others), and benchmarking was performed. Concept generation and selection was informed by engineering analysis on the sensing system, physics platform, power, cost, weight, and volume.
A functional (benchtop) prototype was created following significant technology development and implemented with LabVIEW, a breadboard, and piezoelectric transducers. A separate testing system (motor-driven cam mechanism embedded in ballistic gel) was also developed for verification testing. A form-factor prototype was built to perform validation testing using 3D printing (housing) and sourced electronic components, and was controlled with an Arduino to simulate various alert states.
