Objective.
Neonatal jaundice is a common condition in the early stages of newborns, and
phototherapy is a fast, safe and effective method that is used to treat it. However, recent studies have shown that
phototherapy may elicit side effects in infants, such as
hypothermia,
hyperthermia and
dehydration. To improve the quality of
phototherapy and the prognosis of patients, the changes in neonatal physiological parameters during
phototherapy should be monitored to give better feedback to pediatricians or the
phototherapy system. However, the current standard of clinical care during neonatal
phototherapy with hard-wired devices limits this realization.Approach. Here, we developed a prototype of a neonatal
wearable device, which can wirelessly potentially monitor the
jaundice value, transepidermal water loss, skin wettedness factor and body orientation during
phototherapy, and conducted prototype validation experiments. We also set up user-friendly interfaces and an analysis system on custom software, all designed to make the future addition of data interfaces for treatment feedback functions easier.Main results. The preliminaryin vitroexperiment demonstrated the effectiveness of simultaneous monitoring of the required physiological parameters. And further suggestions and specific operations are discussed in terms of optimization of the treatment of
neonatal jaundice.Significance. It is believed that the established system has the potential to provide a basis for future
phototherapy nursing guidelines and physiological monitoring standards.