More than 140 million lives are brought to this world per year. It made ensuring the safety of mothers and newborns a global concern. Women tend to have children later now, and it goes with an increased risk during pregnancy. Also, several ongoing pieces of research underscore the importance of satisfying, normal childbirth. It is described as a significant event of great psychological importance in a woman's life. It forever shapes women's thoughts of themselves and may affect their relationships with other family members. Therefore, the industry is facing challenges of enabling moms to have the safe and smooth pregnancy experience they deserve.

Providing great user experience and getting to the root of clinical pain points are the motives of most healthcare practitioners. EDAN‘s pedigree with fetal monitoring goes back to 1996. It’s been over 25 years now, and EDAN has grown into the top two companies in the global fetal monitoring market share. Hear from clinical needs. Tailored for clinics. This is EDAN’s initiative of designing every product. The idea is especially reflected in the birth process of EDAN’s latest Fetal and Maternal Monitor, the F15 Series.

IQ Demodulation for Reducing the Incidences of FHR Doubling and Halving

Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) is the main way to assess the safety of the fetus before and during the labor process and to quickly catch the signal when the fetus is hypoxic. Doubling and halving have always been an issue in the EFM process. When FHR drops to 110 bpm or lower, the systolic number becomes far apart from the diastolic. At the moment, the fetal monitor may calculate the two movements of one heartbeat into two single heartbeats, where the result is duplicate. It’s a typical misjudgment caused by the limitation of the Doppler effect and is reported during clinical application as well.

Similarly, if the FHR is over 180bpm, fetal monitors might recognize two separate heartbeats, as the diastole and systole of a single heartbeat, causing the fetal heart rate to be halved. To solve this problem, F15 Fetal and Maternal Monitor adopted the In-Phase and Quadrature Demodulation to the calculation scheme of fetal heart rate, avoiding the clinical issue of doubling and halving the fetal heart rate. This technology has been verified by a paper published on Maternal-Fetal Medicine, September 23, 2021.

“IQ demodulation is not something new. But, it’s the first time used in Obstetrics and on EFM, after two years of the clinical trial.” Said Xicheng Xie, the Vice President of EDAN. Xie was also the one who initiated the idea of integrating IQ demodulation on EFM.

IQ demodulation technology was originally applied in the ultrasound field. It requires professional scanning skills to find a fixed, proper scanning place and provide the best imaging result. “It is not that case in the application of fetal monitoring.” explained Jinqun Liu, the technique manager on the algorithm team of EDAN Obstetrics product line, “During the monitoring process of 30 minutes or more, the baby won’t stay still. So, the position of the signal is always in a dynamic change. This is the core technical difficulty we need to breakthrough for the IQ demodulation application in fetal monitoring.”

Intelligently Identify for Critical Situations and Alarming

CTG alarming is also a key criterion for an intelligent fetal monitor. For those regions with limited medical resources, catching severe conditions timely might not be so easy. To solve this problem, F15 Series develop the CTG alarm functions to determine and give real-time alarms for abnormal conditions, such as Sinusoidal Mode, Low Variability, Tachycardia Without Variability, and Delayed Deceleration. Including more sophisticated alarm information on F15 gives more power to midwives for quick critical clinical case identification.

CTG alarming is usually equipped on the central workstation, which is not necessarily installed by many remote or small clinics. Considering the existed limitation, F15 is equipped with an alarm function as an ultimate CTG machine. It helps caregivers keep the monitoring process in hand all the time, which means it is suitable for professional maternity centers as well. The Frankfurt University Hospital in Germany, the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Thailand, and so on have become the first users of F15 shortly after its official release.

The ingenuity of Industrial Design Was Highlighted in Subtleties

The F15 Series was named the national manufacturing individual champion product in 2020. A major reason is that the industrial design of F15 also considers many practical clinical needs. For example, caregivers could simply superimpose an accessory on the TOCO probe to monitor MHR directly. It provides SOV(signal overlap verification) to check whether the fetal heart rate and the maternal heart rate overlap and timely warning. In addition, 15-min backup memory for offline data saving, patient’s data switching at one click, the large size of touch screen, efficient workflow design for meeting every need in only 2 steps. All the designs sharply improve user experiences.

Wearing monitoring devices for a long time can be quite stressful during pregnancy. Wireless FHR monitoring solutions are designed to give moms a better experience. The probes equipped by F15 Air are much smaller and lighter to carry. It brings the wireless solution to the next level. It just coincides with the concept of Modern Delivery Room proposed by Dr. Guo Xiaohui.

Advances in fetal and maternal monitoring technology help to create a professional, intelligent, modern delivery environment for women. After 3-year technological research and breakthrough, F15 Series grew out of the need to provide doctors with a thoughtful working environment and guard the safety of moms and babies. EDAN believes that childbirth is supposed to happen simply, without worry or trouble.

For more information, please visit the official website of EDAN F15 Series at https://www.edan.com/product/j/OBGYN_F15_Series.html.