Development of a Wireless Oral-Feeding Monitoring System for Preterm Infants

Oral-feeding disorder is common in preterm infants. It not only shows the adverse effect for growth and neurodevelopment in clinical but also becomes one of the important indicators of high-risk group for neurodevelopment delay in preterm infants. Preterm infants must coordinate the motor patterns of sucking, swallowing, and respiration skillfully to avoid choking, aspiration, oxygen desaturation, bradycardia, or apnea episodes. However, up to now, the judgment and classification severity in preterm infants are mostly subjective and phasic evaluations. Directly monitoring the coordination of sucking-swallowing-breathing during oral feeding simultaneously is difficult for preterm infants. In this study, we proposed a wireless oral-feeding monitoring system for preterm infants to quantitatively monitor the sucking pressure via a designed sucking pressure sensing device, swallowing activity via a microphone to detect swallowing sound, and diaphragmatic breathing movement via surface electromyogram. Moreover, a sucking-swallowing-breathing detection algorithm is also proposed to evaluate the events of sucking-swallowing-breathing activities. Furthermore, verification of the accuracy and rationality of oral-feeding parameters with clinical findings including sucking, swallowing, and breathing in term and preterm infants had proved the practicality and value of the proposed system.