Infant health monitor

One of a new parent’s worst fears is to discover that their newborn had stopped breathing during sleep and died. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden and unexpected death of an apparently healthy infant, whose death remains unexplained after further medical investigation such as an autopsy. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is neither a disease, nor can it be a diagnosis for a living baby. Infant mortality is classified as SIDS when, despite a thorough investigation, no explanation can be found for the death of the infant. Because SIDS is identified in situations where no explanation for the death can be found, the potential causes of SIDS has been largely speculative. Potential causes include cardiac disorders, respiratory abnormalities, gastrointestinal diseases, metabolic disorders, injury and child abuse. A face down infant is considered by many experts in the field of infant mortality to be a high risk position for a SIDS attributed death because a face down position may lead to periods of apnea. While infants may be resuscitated during a period of apnea, most SIDS events occur at night when the infant’s caregiver is sleeping. Infants who have periods of apnea, or difficulty in breathing, sudden skin color change to blue or pale, changes in muscle tone either to limpness or rigidity and who appear to require help in breathing are more likely to die of SIDS.

For the last several decades, substantial attention has been paid to the problems encountered with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). A number of scientific studies find a significant reduction in the incidence of SIDS in high risk groups utilizing home monitoring programs. It is suggested to monitor breathing of an infant by monitoring breathing from difference in temperatures of inhaled air and exhaled air detected by a temperature sensor attached to the infant’s nasal cavity. It is also proposed to monitor breathing, using a strain gage or the like, by expansion and contraction of a belt attached around the infant’s chest. The pulse oximeter has been used for use as a SIDS monitor to monitor the blood hemoglobin oxygen saturation as a means of detecting hypoxemia secondary to apnea and hypoventilation as oxygen desaturation is the first event to occur in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. A pulse oximeter monitors the pulse rate and the oxygen saturation in the blood. It is thought that a drop in the oxygen saturation to an unsafe level (hypoxemia) is the first event to occur in the SIDS. As such, the pulse oximeter is a means of monitoring hypoxemia, hence it can give early warning of a SIDS episode. Pulse oximeters operate by measuring a light signal passed through an extremity. This light signal changes, depending on the oxygen saturation of the red blood cells. Alarm systems have been designed to detect if an infant has stopped breathing or if the infant’s heart rate has slowed significantly. These apnea alarm systems have been available. These alarm systems use electrodes attached to the infant’s skin. They provide an audible alarm if the infant stops breathing for a predetermined period or if the heart rate drops below a designated level.

A number of devices have been developed for monitoring the condition of a baby in a hospital care environment. Among such devices, perhaps the best known for distressed care is an incubator which carefully monitors the condition of the infant in the incubator while carefully controlling temperature and humidity. Dehydration remains a leading cause of infant morbidity and mortality worldwide. The clinical state of dehydration disrupts life sustaining processes at the organic and cellular level. Its clinical manifestations indicate total body water depletion leading to poor intravascular volume. The body system protectively shunts blood towards the most vital organs such as heart, kidney and brain, and away from peripheral organs such as the intestines, muscles and skin. The earliest sign of dehydration may be seen in the skin and muscle tissues. Infant hydration monitor offers an opportunity to obtain reproducible quantitative measures of tissue water content that potentially can complement traditional qualitative methods of assessing a patient’s hydration status.

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May 25, 2008 | Filed Under Baby health