Monitoring of preterm infants during crying episodes

Abstract

Preterm infants often suffer from respiratory problems. Crying is an effort which may have an adverse impact on blood oxygenation. In this work we present a measurement system aimed at the evaluation of the distress occurring during cry, giving a quantitative measure of the decrease of cerebral oxygenation. The system allows to monitor the central and the peripheral oxygenation, together with an audio recording of vocal emissions by the infant. Preliminary results on a data set of 15 preterm infants indicate that in some cases the effort is associated with a large decrease in the oxygenation level during a cry.