A Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology
The standard care for pregnant women in Tanzania is done in health facilities. The fetal heart
rate monitoring among other things is done during scheduled antenatal clinic visits. High
number of still birth caused by timely and inaccurate fetal heart rate monitoring is one of the
major concerns in the management of those diagnosed with mild pre-eclampsia throughout
their pregnancy. Pregnant women in the low income countries ,at gestational age of 28+ weeks
are at high risk and require to perform fetal heart rate monitoring frequently. Therefore, the
automated tool for self-monitoring of fetal heart rate remotely is of high need to save both the
life of the mother and the unborn child. A mixed method was used to identify and gather
requirements for fetal heart beat rate monitoring tool. Agile methodology was used to design
the prototype of the fetal heart beat rate monitoring device. This study observed that, 54% of
the pregnant women conducted their own fetal heart rate monitoring through charting fetal
kicks manually. In addition, the fetal heart beat rate monitoring device has been developed to
sense and record in real-time the fetal heart beats and pregnant women’s heartbeat. Apart from
that the belt has also succeeded to record the temperature, location using GPS of the pregnant
woman. Using GSM module and the Blynk Application the captured information is sent to the
patient and health facility for monitoring purposes. In implementation of this study, it avails
raise of awareness on the importance of continuously monitoring the fetal heart beat rate for
pregnant women with hypertensive condition during pregnancy in communication with the
health facility- medical personnel.