When a baby is admitted to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) they usually need tests and analyzes on a daily basis to be able to monitor their health, but many of them are uncomfortable for them.
In order to reduce this discomfort, a group of scientists from Washington State University has developed a smart pacifier, which would help monitor babies admitted to the NICU in a less invasive and painful way .
According to the study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics , the monitoring of the baby’s electrolytes is essential for babies who are admitted to the NICU. However, the most effective way to do this is through daily, twice daily blood tests.
This type of analysis is particularly important because it helps to know if the baby is dehydrated, something that, as we have mentioned before, can be very dangerous for babies, especially those who were born prematurely or have a health problem.
An alternative that has been found for this type of analysis is to do it using the saliva of babies , but until now there was no device that could do it continuously and in real time, and that would also be comfortable for babies.
That is why the researchers developed an intelligent and wireless bioelectronic pacifier, based on a traditional commercial pacifier, which allows them to check the salivary electrolytes of newborns in real time, without the need to take blood .
” We know that premature babies have a better chance of surviving if they get high-quality care in their first month of life. Normally, they get blood drawn twice a day, just to get a couple of facts. This device gives us a way non-invasive method of real-time monitoring of infants’ electrolyte concentration, ” explains Jong-Hoon Kim, one of the study’s authors.
In a test carried out with babies admitted to the NICU, the device was found to be effective, so the researchers say that the next step will be to find ways to make its components less expensive and recyclable.
