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EAI International Conference on Body Area Networks

BODYNETS 2021: Body Area Networks. Smart IoT and Big Data for Intelligent Health Management pp 168–175Cite as

Body-Area Sensing in Maternity Care: Evaluation of Commercial Wristbands for Pre-birth Stress Management

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Part of the Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering book series (LNICST,volume 420)

Abstract

Many women use digital tools during pregnancy and birth. There are many existing mobile applications to measure quantity and length of contractions during early labour, but there is a need to offer evidence-based, credible electronic and digital solutions to parents-to-be. This article presents ongoing research work in a research project regarding mobile telemetric supported maternity care. It summarizes an approach for stress management in late maternity and under birth preparation that is based on body area sensing, our investigation of the properties of commercially available wearable wristbands for body sensing, and the insights gained from testing the wristbands from the project's perspective. We found that sensing precision is very variable depending on the wristband model, while the flows of medical personal data exclusively are routed through vendor cloud platforms outside the EU. The impact of our findings for the use of commercial wristbands in European medical research and practice is discussed in the conclusion.

Keywords

  • Midwifery
  • Stress management
  • Body area networking
  • Mobile health
  • Wearables
  • Self-metering

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Acknowledgement

The work leading to this publication was funded through the Digital Well Research project by Region Värmland, Sweden.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

    Anna Nordin

  2. Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Lothar Fritsch

  3. County Council of Värmland, Karlstad, Sweden

    Karin Ängeby

Authors
  1. Anna Nordin
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  2. Karin Ängeby
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  3. Lothar Fritsch
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Nordin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Masood Ur Rehman

  2. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Ahmed Zoha

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Nordin, A., Ängeby, K., Fritsch, L. (2022). Body-Area Sensing in Maternity Care: Evaluation of Commercial Wristbands for Pre-birth Stress Management. In: Ur Rehman, M., Zoha, A. (eds) Body Area Networks. Smart IoT and Big Data for Intelligent Health Management. BODYNETS 2021. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95593-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95593-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95592-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95593-9

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