Our work is about preventing stillbirth and improving the detection of babies at high risk of it, allowing them to be born alive and healthy. One of the most important warning signs of stillbirth is decreased fetal movements.
Currently, there is no objective way to assess and measure fetal movements and we continue to rely wholly on the mothers own perceptions to evaluate this . For many women this doesnt work for a number of reasons. For one, mothers dont feel up to half of their movements at the best of times. Caregivers, on the other hand are all too often unable to act upon changes in movements which they are unable to actively quantify. What is needed is a simple, continuous, but objective measure of fetal movements.
We have therefore invented a novel wearable patch the size of a bandaid to continuously monitor fetal movements. We call it FetalKicks. We have already shown that it works in two studies, detecting fetal movements better than the mothers feelings of movements. The next phase of development of FetalKicks will allow us to develop its ability to monitor fetal movements 24/7, automatically detect fetal movements through artificial intelligence and alert the mother when her babys movements are not normal. When complete, this will finally give us the ability to track fetal movements continuously, giving vital real time information to both mothers and the clinicians who care for them to act upon.
