Wearable fetal monitoring system having textile electrodes

Abstract

A seamless, smart fetal monitoring garment and methods of using thereof. The system includes a knitted or interwoven garment having a multiplicity of conductive textile electrodes for sensing maternal and fetal electrical vital signals. The maternal and fetal electrical vital signals are selected from a group including maternal heart rate, fetal heart rate and electromyogram (EMG) activities including uterine activities. The method includes wearing the garment, acquiring electrical mixed common, maternal and fetal vital signals from surface region of a pregnant woman, using the plurality of textile electrodes, optimally weighted summing-up the acquired signals, analyzing the summed-up signals to thereby extract the maternal signal and the fetal signal, including determining their heart rates, and including detecting health hazards and in some embodiments, including detecting a uterine contraction sequence suggesting the need to be hospitalized for birth giving.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for maternal and fetal monitoring comprising the steps of:
 a) wearing a knitted or interwoven smart maternal garment having a plurality of textile electrodes integrally knitted or interwoven therein, said textile electrodes being in communication flow with a processor;   b) acquiring electrical mixed common, maternal and fetal electrical vital signals from a predetermined external surface region of a pregnant woman, using a plurality of textile electrodes integrally knitted or interwoven into a maternal garment;   c) optimally weighted summing-up said acquired mixed maternal and fetal electrical vital signals to thereby form a summed-up mixed signal, having a substantially higher SNR than either of the acquired maternal and fetal electrical vital signals;   d) analyzing the summed-up mixed signal to thereby extract the maternal signal from said summed-up mixed signal and maternal-related-parameters thereof; and   e) healing the summed-up mixed signal, including deleting the extracted maternal signal from said summed-up mixed signal, to thereby form a healed-summed-up mixed signal;   f) analyzing said healed-summed-up mixed signal to thereby extract a fetal signal from said healed-summed-up mixed signal and fetal-related-parameters thereof.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said maternal-related-parameters are selected from the group including heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, blood pressure, skin temperature and ECG parameters such as ST elevation and depression. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said fetal-related-parameters are selected from the group including heart rate, spatial position of the heart inside the womb, body spatial orientation inside the womb, motion inside the womb and body dimensions.