BabyBelt: A Low-Cost Wearable Uterine Contraction Monitoring Belt Using Velostat Sensors

Asfina Hassan Juicy, Tasmia Rahman Aanika, Mahmud Wasif Nafee, Shams Nafisa Ali

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Keywords: Uterine contractions, wearable sensor, maternal monitoring, piezoresistive materials, Velostat

TL;DR: A low-cost maternal wearable belt using Velostat sensors and Wheatstone bridges for uterine contraction monitoring, interfaced with off-the-shelf microcontrollers and achieving performance comparable to clinical standard device.

Abstract: This paper presents BabyBelt, a wearable uterine contraction monitoring system designed to improve maternal care access during late pregnancy, when early detection of labor anomalies like preterm labor is critical. Existing solutions including cardiotocography (CTG) and electrohysterography (EHG), are often expensive, immobile, or sensitive to placement and signal artifacts, limiting their utility in low-resource settings. BabyBelt integrates stretchable fabric with Velostat-based piezoresistive sensors and a passive Wheatstone bridge front-end to enable real-time uterine contraction pressure sensing via off-the-shelf microcontrollers. In simultaneous testing on the same pressure setup, the system achieved waveform correlation with clinical CTG of up to 0.9810 during pressure cycles, demonstrating comparable temporal accuracy using materials costing under 70 USD.

Track: 2. Sensors and systems for digital health, wellness, and athletics

NominateReviewer:

Mahmud Wasif Nafee
[e-mail], [e-mail]

Submission Number: 60