WEINHEIM, Germany—Freudenberg Medical L.L.C. has helped develop cable-free silicone monitoring belts to address separation discomfort for premature babies.
Formed from a narrow band placed around the baby's chest, the belt includes sensors that send signals to a portable monitor and can replace the existing adhesive patches, to which the skin of premature babies can be sensitive.
Furthermore, it reduces the risk of injury that comes with the peeling of the adhesive patches when removing the baby from an incubator, Freudenberg said in a recent statement.
Developed in collaboration with German medical startup Bambi Medical B.V., the belt features dry electrodes which enable the monitoring of the heart muscle's electrical activity and measures respiration activity.
According to the German manufacturer, the Freudenberg Medical team in Kaiserslautern, Germany, supported the development of the band with its materials expertise and production technology
"When it came to the prototypes and first samples, we built special tools for the belts and tested different silicones which we can produce in four sizes," said Rudolf Dering, project engineer molding at Freudenberg Medical.
According to Dering, a "special manual production process" is used in the manufacture of the belts.
The belt has been tested in two studies in Dutch hospitals, including at Amsterdam University Hospital.
One of the studies monitored premature babies simultaneously using the current monitoring device with conventional adhesive electrodes and the wireless Bambi Belt.
The results, according to Freudenberg, were "very good," showing that babies were under less stress and the monitoring was "reliable."
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