BABYCARESLEEP

Development of a non-invasive baby sleep monitoring and intelligent control system for the prevention of unexpected death in previously healthy babies and early detection of risky situations

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the highest cause of death in the post‐neonatal period (between 2nd and 6th month of life). Only in Europe, each year 2 400 infants still die of SIDS, an unexpected disease happening to infants who die in their sleep with no evidence of accidental asphysia, inflicted injury or organic disease; being a multifactorial syndrome mainly related to overheating, prolonged apnea, gastroesophageal reflux or inadequate bedding system and posture. In addition, SIDS is ten times more frequent within preterm newborns, around 385 000 babies per year are born preterm in Europe.

BabyCareSleep project aims to develop a novel non-invasive intelligent monitoring system to prevent unexpected deaths in previously healthy infants and to detect risky situations in an early stage. Integrated in the cot through biosensing textiles, matrices of sensors will detect the most relevant biological parameters that will enable the detection of potential risky situation and performing preventive actions. The preventive system will stimulate sufficiently the baby’s brain (generate a sleep arousal) avoiding infant's hypoxia and resuming breathing activity and will be so gentle to not awake the baby from sleep.

As a result, the SMEs will strength their competitive position facing foreign competition, achieving cumulative benefits during the four year of post-project commercialization over €10 million. In addition, our proposed system will help to avoid dramatic situations in families and at the same time will give confidence to parents by a non-invasive and cot-integrated monitoring and warning system that will improve their quality of life.

BabyCareSleep project will count with all the involved SME through the supply chain (textiles, electronic & communication, mattresses and a paediatrician sleep clinic); with RTDs of biomechanics, smart textiles and intelligent control systems; and with the support of a association for paediatric research.'

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The project http://babycaresleep.com/ (BABYCARESLEEP) (Development of a non-invasive baby sleep monitoring and intelligent control system for the prevention of unexpected death in previously healthy babies and early detection of risky situations) is a two-year initiative working on the development of sensor matrices that can be integrated in the cot using bio-sensing textiles to follow most relevant biological parameters. This will enable detection of potential risky situations and alert parents. The system itself will initiate preventative actions by stimulating the baby's brain for gentle sleep arousal, thus preventing hypoxia and reinstating breathing activity.

In the first nine months, the project team defined requirements of both paediatricians and parents, produced a first proposal for user interfaces and described use cases. First tests with babies returned promising results regarding the ability of the stimulation system to generate arousal without waking the babies. Lab-working prototypes of bio-sensing textiles have been obtained and a first lab-scale system for the sensor box has been developed.

Present work involved trials with babies to define the proper stimulation for each case and the matrix of bio-sensing textiles communicating with the control system. Work is progressing with the input of relevant parties. These include small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout the relevant supply chain (textiles, electronics and communications, mattress manufacturers), a paediatric sleep clinic, developers of biomechanics, smart textiles and intelligent control systems, and an association for paediatric research.

Project work is set to deliver key innovations for a smart real-time bio-sensing textile, intelligent control system, risk assessment and actuation algorithm for SIDS prevention, and management and control user-friendly interface. All together, these will drive development of an integrated system for early detection of risky situations and SIDS prevention.

BABYCARESLEEP's envisioned monitoring and warning system promises far-reaching benefits for families through reduced stress and infant deaths. It also offers millions in benefits for participating SMEs through a planned four-year post-project commercialisation effort.