Noninvasive monitoring of vital signs of the newborn

Abstract

Monitoring of vital signs is an essential and important part of the care for newborns in all types of neonatology departments. The basic monitored parameters include heart rate, respiratory rate, and peripheral blood oxygen saturation. Monitoring methods can be classified to invasive and non-invasive, the latter further into contactless and (more widespread in practice) contact methods. The review article presents standard as well as less common standard methods of non-invasive measurement of neonatal vital signs. At the end of the article, the authors present an experimental system including a sensory pad with a built-in optical fiber for sensing the heart and respiratory rate of a newborn developed in cooperation with scientists of the Technical University of Ostrava.