UAct Wearable Patch for Uterine Activity Measurement

According to WHO every year 15 million babies born preterm and the number is rising. Over 1 million babies die annually due to preterm. Key to treatment and prevention to preterm labor is early diagnosis. Existing expensive devices or devices which requires skilled professionals do not meet the criteria’s and performance in resource poor settings. Fetal heart rate and contractions monitoring is important during third trimester. Premature contractions or abnormal fetal heart rate can lead to complications like stillbirth, preterm birth and low birth weight baby. Proposed solution UAct is wearable patch of passive sensors with novel positioning protocol for uterine activity measurement. It uses well established EMG sensors to assess contractions and fetal heart rate. UAct can early diagnose preterm birth using smart phone based software. This device cost less than US$100 and with mobile application integration it will allow remote monitoring and predict preterm birth to save lives.Preterm birth causes 85% of the perinatal deaths. Early diagnosis is the only prevention and treatment. This will be achieved by monitoring uterine activity with UAct device during labor or pre term contractions. At least 3000 women in marginalized population will be given this device during active and preterm labor. Those detected in preterm will be intervened by experts and will have impact over life. Over 3-5 years 1 million pregnancies will be covered by UAct where interventions are made.