A new method for fetal movement detection using an intelligent T-shirt embedded physiological sensors

Fetal movement is an important indicator showing fetal health. Classically, ultrasound and pregnant women's subjective perception are the most popular methods for detecting fetal movements. However, ultrasound is available in hospitals only, causing inconvenience to pregnant women. The pregnant women's subjective perception is strongly related to her personal experience and level of attention, which is uncertain and not accurate enough. In this paper, we propose a wearable technology-based system in order to detect fetal movements conveniently and accurately. The system includes an intelligent garment integrating a number of multi-scale sensors connected each other, a standardized cloud computing platform on which medical diagnosis is realized using a medical expert system. For this purpose, we realize two electronic devices, ready to be integrated into a garment and permitting to collect typical signals on fetal movements. Based on the measured signals, we propose a method combining wavelet analysis and band-pass filter in order to extract relevant features on fetal movements.