US 2017/0319126 A1 · Method, apparatus and computer program product for examination of intra-uterus condition of a fetus

Abstract

Mechanical vibrations induced by the heart of the foetus, together with other vibrations coming from the body of the pregnant mother, are sensed by the at least one electro-mechanical transformer placed on the body surface of the pregnant mother, the vibrations are transformed into electrical signals and processed. The electrical signals are pre-amplified, frequencies including the heart sound of the pregnant mother are removed from amplified electrical signals of the perceived vibrations by active bandpass filtering, the signal level reduction due to bandpass filtering is compensated for by amplification, and the filtered signal is transferred to a device for processing and evaluation. A device suitable for implementing the method, and a computer-readable medium are proposed, the latter comprising instructions to be run on the device, e.g. the smartphone, for processing the measured signals, displaying them visually, showing trends and making proposals to the user based on the processed signals.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A method for the examination of intra-uterine condition of a foetus, the method comprising:

sensing, by at least one sensor placed on a body surface of a pregnant mother, mechanical vibration induced by the heart of the foetus in the uterus, together with other vibrations coming from the body of the pregnant mother;
transforming the perceived vibration into an electrical signal;
transmitting the electrical signal so received to a signal processing unit, processing and evaluating the transmitted electrical signal in said signal processing unit;
during the signal processing, pre-amplifying said electrical signals with a manually adjustable gain or by automatic gain control;
removing the frequencies including the heartbeat of the pregnant mother from the amplified electrical signals of the perceived vibration by active bandpass filtering;
compensating for a signal level reduction caused by said bandpass filtering by further amplification;
subjecting the filtered signal to further transformation before evaluation by modulating said filtered signal to a carrier frequency in the range of 5.5-6.5 kHz and transmitting the modulated filtered signal for further evaluation;
performing evaluation by first demodulating, then processing said modulated signal;
and
displaying acoustically and/or optically said evaluated signal to a user.

7 more elements

A device for the examination of the intra-uterine condition of the foetus, comprising

at least one electro-acoustic transducer (22) sensing mechanical vibration,
a portable multifunctional communication device (21),
where the at least one electro-acoustic transducer (22) comprising a device that can be fastened adjacent to the uterus on the body of the pregnant mother, and
the electro-acoustic transducer (22) is connected to the communication device (21) by one of a wired or wireless connection, furthermore
where the communication device (21) is provided with at least one of an acoustical and optical display unit,
furthermore, the communication device (21) comprises a signal evaluating unit,
where the signal evaluating unit comprising a unit evaluating and displaying input data based on the stored instructions,
characterised in that
a filtering and signal conditioning stage (23) is inserted between the electro-acoustic transducer (22) sensing mechanical vibration and the portable multi-functional communication device (21);
the filtering and signal conditioning stage (23) comprises a pre-amplifier (24) provided with manual or automatic gain control, the output of which is connected to the input of a band-pass filter (25), the output of the latter is connected through an amplifier (26) to the input of the frequency modulator (27) where the bandpass filter (25) comprising an active band pass filter (25) cutting off sharply the frequencies of around under 20 Hz and above 200 Hz and under around 70 Hz and above 300 Hz comprising also the heartbeat of the pregnant mother.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method, apparatus and computer program product for examination of intra-uterus condition of a fetus

Life of this patent

Method, apparatus and computer program product for examination of intra-uterus condition of a fetus

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25