Stethoscope for Monitoring Neonatal Abdominal Sounds

This research involves the development of a custom electronic stethoscope system for monitoring abdominal, or so-called bowel, sounds in premature infants. Possible causes of bowel dysfunction in premature infants include bowel obstruction, functional or anatomic, which may be reflected as an abnormality or lack of peristalsis. Such dysfunction is problematic to feeding the infant. This peristalsis may be monitored acoustically to determine the health of the patient’s digestive tract. Due to the relative lack of research involving infants in this field, we are performing this research in several phases. Starting with our initial research, our current system utilizes a commercial electronic stethoscope. The second phase is development of a custom electronic stethoscope system appropriate for a bowel sounds monitoring device, for which our preliminary research is being used in the design. Our custom stethoscope will have unique characteristics. The stethoscope will remain attached to the patient for extended periods and, compared to the patient, must be small in size. Unlike an adult, regions in the neonate abdomen are much smaller and may not be acoustically isolated. Also, unlike a conventional device, the stethoscope must be optimized for listening to sounds common in the abdomen. Results from this new stethoscope are compared with other preliminary results that we have obtained and will be used to further characterize bowel sounds in premature infants.