A self-capacitance driven wearable electromyometrial imaging system for maternal and fetal monitoring during pregnancy and labor

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PROJECT SUMMARY Approximately 10% of pregnant women give birth preterm In the United States and worldwide, which not only results in a high rate of fetal mortality but also puts the children at a lifelong risk of negative health consequences such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and visual and hearing impairments. Despite years of research, the mechanisms of initiation and propagation of uterine contractions resulting in preterm labor and birth remain unknown. In large part, this is because of our limited ability to monitor the human uterine contractions with sufficient spatial and temporal resolutions. This leads to a lack of critical knowledge of the pathologic factors that alter the normal uterine maturation, initiate preterm labor, and result in preterm birth. In order to address this unmet clinical and research need, our team has recently developed a novel high-resolution and noninvasive electromyometrial imaging (EMMI) system, which uses up to 256 unipolar electrodes to measure uterine electrograms from the patient's abdomen surface and then combines the patient-specific body-uterus geometry obtained by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to generate accurate and robust three-dimensional maps of uterine electrical activity during contractions. Because such a powerful experimental tool could permit closer and more precise study of birth-related risks and improve maternal and child outcomes, we believe there could be a significant clinical impact for us to develop a low-cost, wireless, and wearable version in order to make this imaging technology more accessible for outpatient or in-home monitoring settings. We propose to develop and validate the functionality of a unique wearable EMMI system with printed disposable electrodes, wireless power delivery, and telemetry for continuously monitoring of the uterine contraction activities in ambulatory patients. The proposed research activity will involve developing of ultrathin soft sensor patches with printed stretchable electrodes for recording high quality electrograms from the patient’s abdomen and generating accurate and robust 3D maps of the uterine surface; investigating and designing a novel self-capacitance based wireless power transfer instrumentation for wirelessly powering all the sensing and telemetry circuits at each recording site in a fully distributed high-density imaging system; validating the wireless and wearable EMMI system in human subjects and benchmarking its performance against “gold standard” wired EMMI system. Upon successful completion of this study, the entirely new wearable, wireless, and batteryless imaging system developed in the project will facilitate EMMI's clinical translations, allow it to be used outside the delivery room for outpatient setting or in-home monitoring applications, and ultimately enable us to leverage the electrical mapping data for evaluating uterine electrical maturation and contraction patterns during pregnancy and labor and use the results to better understand and treat preterm birth.