Neonatal Wireless Monitoring System for Intensive Care

Babies who require intensive care need to have their heart rate, oxygen levels and temperature measured continuously using specially designed monitors. These monitors allow the clinical team to constantly assess the baby and see if they are becoming unwell. However, these monitors each have separate wires to connect them to the baby. Another important part of care in these babies is being able to allow parents to hold their babies, getting them out of their incubators to be cuddled. This is called Kangaroo care and has been shown to impact on long term health for both babies and parents. We have designed a system to free babies of the wires that tether them to the monitors. This system has been tested in adults and we now want to test them on the babies. There are two study parts with two different questions: 1. How good is the data? This will compare the new wireless system with the existing system. Babies will have both standard wired monitors and the new wireless monitor on at the same time so we can compare the data to see how good is the quality of the data collected on the new system. 2. What do parents and staff think about the wireless system during Kangaroo care? Babies who no longer need monitoring (but who previously had been monitored with the wired system), will have the wireless system attached and the parent will take their baby from the cot for Kangaroo Care. After the baby has been placed back in the cot, we will conduct interviews with the parent and the nurse to find out what they thought of the new system. We hope this will help the investigators to understand about how good the data is we collect and how we might be able to improve the system.