No wires, more cuddles: Montreal Children's tests smart monitoring for babies in its NICU

The MontrealChildren'sHospitalis testing out new wireless technologyto monitorits tiniest patients' vital signs as part of a project aimed at improving the lives of the children and health professionals as well as giving parents better access to their newborns.

Every year in the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), close to 900newborns and premature babies depend on wired vital-sign monitors to survive. These monitorstrack their heart rate, oxygen saturation, temperature and other vital signs.

Themonitoring system involves taping five to 10 wires to the baby's sensitive skin,makingit difficult for them to move around, for theirparents to hold and bond with them and for nurses to care for them.

Being touted as the first project of its kind in the country, theSmart Hospital Project in the Children's NICUis using new Bluetooth sensorsto help remove these barriers.

"By eliminating [wires], we hope we're going to decrease the work that the nurses have to dobut more than that, we're going to improve the bonding between the parents and the baby," saidDr.Guilherme Sant'Anna, an associate professor of pediatrics at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) andone of three researchersconducting the study.

WATCH|Dr.Guilherme Sant'Anna shows how the wireless technology works:

Neonatologist shows why wireless monitoring is needed and how it works

2 years ago

Duration 1:21

Dr. Guilherme Sant'Anna, an associate professor of pediatrics at the McGill University Health Centre, says the wireless system will eliminate several complications caused by traditional wired monitors.

He said parents are often afraid to hold their babies in the NICU because they fearthewires will disconnect or break. The wireless sensors alleviate that concernand promote more skin-to-skin contact, which Sant'Anna said improves outcomes.

The Bluetooth monitoring system involvesonly two sensors: a small patch on the baby's chest and a band around the ankle. These sensorssend the same information that the wires do to the monitor along witheven more data not currently recorded, such as the movement and position of the baby.

The absence of wires has made abig difference for parents like Nathalie Nicolas, whois still recovering from her preterm birth. Her baby boy was born at 25 weeks, weighing just 600 grams, and he's been in hospital for three months.

Nicolassaid it was distressing seeing her baby hooked up to at least six wires.

"It's like a wave of 'what's going on, what's happening with mybaby,'" she said."It'sreally stressful for a parent."

Throughout the months,Nicolassaid trying to hold her baby and dress him while navigating the wires was like playing a game of limbo. She said the wires wouldget stuck around her son's toes and nurses would have to duck under them to help untangle them.

Nicolas is nowone of more than two dozen parents participating in the wireless monitoringtrial. She said the new technology means the world to her family.

"It makes it easier to take your baby inyourarms. It makes it easier to dress your baby. It makes it easier to feel a bit more normal," she said.

The wireless system has been tested in the Children's NICU for the past four to five months andSant'Anna saysa total of 20 patients have participated.The project is currently comparing the signals acquired bystandard wires with the signals acquired bywireless sensors simultaneously to ensure they match.

He said the ultimate goal will be to get babies home earlier where they can be monitoredat a distance. Older patients would also be able to benefit from this greater mobility.

"The goal is to get this in most hospitals across Quebec and Canada," saidSant'Anna.