Surepulse - Monitoring The Newborn
Lead Participant:
SUREPULSE MEDICAL LIMITED
Abstract
"Amazingly, 10% of babies need assistance with their breathing at birth ~14M/year worldwide. Reasons for this include being born too early or partial umbilical cord strangulation. Those who receive the necessary aid quickly/efficiently will generally go on to lead normal lives, however those for which this is not the case are at risk of harm including damage to their brain or blindness for example.
Doctors have several ways they can help but need a way of assessing how well their treatment is working. They do this by measuring the heart rate (HR) and Oxygen Saturation (SpO2), the amount of oxygen in the baby's blood. HR becomes much lower than it should be if the baby is poorly. An increase in HR means that treatment is working.
However, unfortunately there is no good way of measuring HR reliably straight after birth. A stethoscope is the common method, but the baby's heart beat can be weak making the heart's sounds difficult to hear and errors can occur in calculating the HR.
SurePulse was set up to solve this dilemma. The HR monitor that we have developed uses a small and safe optical sensor mounted in a soft cap placed on the baby's head. This sensor detects small pulsatile changes in blood supply to the forehead to calculate a HR. The SurePulse monitor has been successfully tested at the Nottingham University Hospitals.
The second important indicator for a newborn baby at birth is the amount of oxygen in the blood. This is measured in a totally safe manner by shining two LED colours at the skin (red and Infrared) and measuring the amount of each colour that returns. The ratio of the light power from these two colours indicates the amount of oxygen in the blood. We also have a patent that that allows us to detect the signature in these colours and we will be using this.
Overall this means that we will be exploring another hugely important factor so that we can provide paediatricians with an ability to measure the SpO2 in even the smallest of babies where the signals are weak. This proposed Innovate UK project has a highly experienced team of engineers, clinicians, scientists, parents and the general public to ensure a successful outcome which will benefit newborns in the years to come."
Doctors have several ways they can help but need a way of assessing how well their treatment is working. They do this by measuring the heart rate (HR) and Oxygen Saturation (SpO2), the amount of oxygen in the baby's blood. HR becomes much lower than it should be if the baby is poorly. An increase in HR means that treatment is working.
However, unfortunately there is no good way of measuring HR reliably straight after birth. A stethoscope is the common method, but the baby's heart beat can be weak making the heart's sounds difficult to hear and errors can occur in calculating the HR.
SurePulse was set up to solve this dilemma. The HR monitor that we have developed uses a small and safe optical sensor mounted in a soft cap placed on the baby's head. This sensor detects small pulsatile changes in blood supply to the forehead to calculate a HR. The SurePulse monitor has been successfully tested at the Nottingham University Hospitals.
The second important indicator for a newborn baby at birth is the amount of oxygen in the blood. This is measured in a totally safe manner by shining two LED colours at the skin (red and Infrared) and measuring the amount of each colour that returns. The ratio of the light power from these two colours indicates the amount of oxygen in the blood. We also have a patent that that allows us to detect the signature in these colours and we will be using this.
Overall this means that we will be exploring another hugely important factor so that we can provide paediatricians with an ability to measure the SpO2 in even the smallest of babies where the signals are weak. This proposed Innovate UK project has a highly experienced team of engineers, clinicians, scientists, parents and the general public to ensure a successful outcome which will benefit newborns in the years to come."
Lead Participant | Project Cost | Grant Offer |
|---|---|---|
| SUREPULSE MEDICAL LIMITED | £197,766 | £ 138,436 |
Participant |
||
| INNOVATE UK |
People |
ORCID iD |
| James Carpenter (Project Manager) |