Romper Suits with Breathing Sensors Prevent Sudden Infant Death

Scientists have developed a device that can ensure the safety of a baby during sleep and prevent sudden infant deaths.

A team of researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin created a romper suit with a printed circuit board (PCB) containing breathing sensors that monitor the infant's breathing in the chest and stomach areas during sleep. The device can alert parents when it notices any changes in the normal breathing process of the baby.

The circuit board is prepared with polyurethane or PU that is widely used a sealant, for coating surfaces or as a cushioning material, The Engineer reported.

The most attractive part of the device lies in its cost-efficiency.

"The circuit board we have developed can be manufactured using routine industrial processes, meaning a high throughput and, consequently, good cost-efficiency," Manuel Seckel, scientist at the IZM, told the website evertiq. "Furthermore, components can be positioned on it just as precisely as on a standard board thanks to the stability of the stretchable substrate during processing. This stands in contrast to textile-based electronics, where one can expect an offset of up to five millimeters over a half-meter area."

The findings come at a time when sleep-related deaths due to various causes including Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), asphyxia, suffocation and entrapment among infants have gone up considerably in U.S. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is one of the leading causes of infant deaths in the U.S., killing about 4,500 babies each year.

Efforts to prevent sleep-related deaths have been on-going. Last month, a team of researchers from Brigham Young University developed a device called Owlet Baby Monitor that monitors a baby's heart rate plus blood-oxygen levels during its sleep. The wireless device, which uses pulse oximetry signals to give accurate data, is worn around an infant's foot like a sock and alerts the parents when it notices any change in the baby's normal breathing process.