New portable device detects electrical activity emitted by mother and unborn baby’s heart

The new portable device is able to detect both the electrical activity emitted by the heart of the mom as from the unborn baby's.

A group of students from the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico (UAM-I) developed a technological portable prototype able to diagnose health conditions in the mother and in the baby, by monitoring electrical activity of both's heart.

The team researchers studying Biomedical Engineering at UAM-I showed that mobile technology, which is placed in the womb (performing an abdominal electrocardiogram), differs from traditional electrocardiograms since it detects the both the electrical activity emitted by the mum's heart, as the unborn child's. In other technologies, which often have complications, both signals are mixed, thus hindering an accurate diagnosis of the cardiac activity of both.

"The applications of our portable system allows a very precise interpretation separating the two components: maternal diagnosis and monitoring in one side and fetal on the other," said Ramon Gonzalez Camarena, project tutor. The researcher explained that certain morphologies, ie, functions of the cardiovascular system, suggesting how the heart of both the mother and the unborn child evolve.

The mobile device is mainly based on the detection of arrhythmias in the heart of the unborn child, although there is a spectrum of diseases associated with abnormalities in the heart's rhythm. However, González Camarena said that it is still necessary to subject the prototype to various biological and safety tests.

The prototype is the result of teamwork between students Dara Nimsi Chávez, Diana Selene Navarro, Tania Guevara Pintado, Laura Anayeli Perez, Orlando Martin Luna, Ricardo Abel Davalos, Angel Damian Gaytan and Enrique Gerardo Zubirán, Biomedical Engineering students who came together to work in a call for Texas Instruments.

"The company Texas Instruments provided many of the circuits that are included in our device, which development took six months. We intend to further miniaturize the instrument until it has the similar size of a cell phone, so that it can be easily placed on the abdomen of the mother," said Gonzalez Camarena.

The researcher, and the group of students under his mentorship, mentioned that so far the prototype has to go through several security tests. However, its use for short-term medical validations has not been ruled out because during operation the technology has denoted an excellent performance.