A monitoring system to rest on the breast during breastfeeding quantifies the outgoing milk and eliminates some common doubts of the neogens.
A wearable device that envelops the breast of the newly monitors “live” the flow of milk sucking by infants during breastfeeding, and transmits it in real time to a smartphone or a connected tablet.
The system developed by a group of Scientists from Korea and the United States allows you to understand precisely how much milk is taking on a baby. A question of uncertainty and recurring anxiety, for parents, and information of crucial importance, for premature or debilitated babies. The study that describes the technology has been described on Nature Biomedical Engineering.
How much will he eat? A problem connected to breastfeeding, activities with the countless beneficial effects for the development of children and for maternal well -being, is the impossibility of precisely quantifying the milk assumed to every feed by infants. The methods used to estimate it, how to weigh the baby on an empty stomach and immediately after the meal, require precision scales and are not practicable at home by most people.
This uncertainty can become a reason for anguish for neogentors in case the child grows slowly, or if the child was born prematurely, or – again – if due to an intervention that took place after childbirth struggles to eat. Pull the milk and provide it with the baby with a bottle can help, but removes part of the benefits of leather contact with the newborn connected to breastfeeding.
Around the breast. Scientists – a group of neonatologists, electronic engineers and experts in analysis of Korea and the United States led by John A. Rogers, pioneer of the Northwestern University Bioelectronics (USA) – have reviewed several methods and advanced a series of failed attempts before arriving at the chosen monitoring method.
They have explored systems to monitor the optical properties of the maternal breast, to quantify the sucking or swallowing movements of infants, up to a simple but accurate technique. The device sends a weak and imperceptible electric current breast through two small electrodes placed on the skin. Two other electrodes capture the voltage difference associated with the current one.
The calculation of the milk released. As the child feeds and that the milk in the breast decreases, the electrical properties of the breast change and this data is directly connected to the quantity of milk assumed from the newborn.
The measured parameter is called bioimpertence And it is already at the center of an exam – bioimpedenziometry – already used to analyze the body composition of human beings (for example, to understand the relationship between quantity of adipose tissue and muscle mass).
We can rest assured … The final device is a thin folding cord to be worn on the external circumference of the breast, with the electrodes integrated to each of the ends. In the center, a small basic station contains the rechargeable battery, the Bluetooth Tecnogia for sending data via wireless to the mobile phone and a memory chip. The device is adjusted on the shape and measurement of the breast and is calibrated by women to the first use, wearing it while connected to a ti -ray.
This procedure “teaches” to the device to connect the volumes of volumes recorded to the volume of milk expressed in a certain period of time, and to interpret in quantitative terms the changes of electrical signal of that breast and that woman. The readings of the device, displayed on the smartphone by the mothers in the form of graphicthey seemed extremely reliable in a clinical study of the prototype of 12 breastfeeding women.
Where precision is needed. For the authors of the study, the Wearable will be useful above all in the management of the power supply of premature babieswhich may have little developed digestive systems and be vulnerable to intestinal disorders or reflux if they eat too much or at the wrong time. This involves the need to Very small and frequent meals. Having a monitoring system could allow premature babies to breastfeed for the necessary time, promoting greater physical contact with mothers.
