New healthcare system for pregnant mothers

The cumbersome days of stressful, manual, wired monitoring of the unborn child in pregnant mothers will soon end - thanks to a new system unveiled at a hospital here.

The Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, known as the Sion Hospital, has introduced India's first Wireless Foetal Monitoring System, a state-of-the-art product invented and developed by the University of Nottingham.

The Monitoring and Care (MONICA) system has been made available through a donation by Steel Chambers Charitable Foundation of India.

The Sion Hospital holds the record for conducting around 14,000 child deliveries a year, the highest in India, said its dean Suleman Merchant.

"For the first time in the country, underprivileged mothers can avail the sophisticated MONICA, developed specially for us," Merchant told IANS.

"It uses ECG-like leads placed on the expectant mother's abdomen for live monitoring of foetal ECG, maternal heart rate and uterine contractions. Traditional transducer belts and connecting wires have been done away with completely," he said.

Since no belts are used, there is freedom for natural birthing positions, to move around and extra space around the bed for the clinician, thus enhancing the birthing experience, he said.

It is sensitive to foetal and maternal heart rates, without causing confusion between the two, works well in obese mothers and drastically reduces the clinician's monitoring time per patient, he added.