Using a Wearable Device to Monitor Blood Pressure in Pregnancy

Syed Imran Ahmed of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh will conduct a pilot study of a wrist-worn device that can continuously monitor blood pressure in pregnant women for the early diagnosis of pregnancy-induced hypertension, which can be dangerous for mother and baby. Hypertension is difficult to diagnose because it requires multiple measurements of blood pressure during normal activity due to daily variations. Current ambulatory methods can only take measurements over around 24 hours and lack portability. Their device combines two-contact electrocardiography and photoplethysmography, pulsewave analysis algorithms, machine learning, and neural network computing techniques and will be tested on a group of at-risk pregnancies for monitoring blood pressure from 20 weeks of pregnancy up to six weeks after birth.