Products
Monica AN24 - In the Home
Tele- or home-monitoring represents an economically and attractive alternative for those pregnant women who require or would appreciate close monitoring without the need for repeated hospital visits.
There have been numerous peer reviewed published studies (references 1-5) demonstrating the efficacy of home monitoring, Table 1.
Table 1 - Efficacy of Home Monitoring
- Decrease the risk of out of hospital mortality
- Improve fetal outcome
- Offer a better experience for the pregnant women
- Saves travel time & costs
- Reduces stress and risk of infection
- Minimizes the time delay in responding to adverse events.
A number of Home Monitoring IT solutions are commercially available (Trium CTG-Mobile ). but conventional CTG monitors are not appropriate for home use for the reasons as listed in Table 2.
Table 2 - The benefits of the Monica AN24 compared to conventional CTG monitoring
| Conventional CTG FHR Monitoring | The Monica AN24 | |
| 1. | Conventional CTG monitors are invasive | The Monica AN24 is passive |
| 2. | The pregnant women requires training and needs to be vigilant during the monitoring session | No supervision is required and minimal training is needed to attach the Monica AN24 electrodes |
| 3. | Multiple daily monitoring sessions severely disrupt normal home life and requires a significant commitment from the pregnant women | The Monica AN24 is unobtrusive and can be worn with for long periods with no interference or disruption to home life and sleep patterns |
| 4. | By definition conventional CTG monitoring is intermittent and can miss adverse events | The Monica AN24 provides the opportunity to monitor the Fetus continuously for 16hrs or more |
| 5. | No context information is provided by a conventional CTG monitor and the recording is limited to an average FHR, UA and maternally sensed movements | The Monica AN24 records maternal activity, MHR and fetal position along with the usual FHR and UA data (summer 2008) |
| 6. | Even the smallest conventional CTG monitor is bulky | The Monica AN24 is around 100g in weight and is the size of a small mobile phone |
Three different types of pregnant women are potentially eligible for home monitoring:
- Low risk maternal and fetal conditions (antenatal) - typical ambulatory patients
- Medium risk maternal and fetal conditions (antenatal/intrapartum) - typical hospitalized patients
- Mothers requiring reassurance
For the first time, the introduction of the Monica AN24 provides a practical solution for the home-care of low and medium risk patient groups resolving many of the problems associted with conventional CTG monitoring both in the home and hospital.
78 of the 120 subjects in the University of Utrecht clinical trial were monitored in the comfort of their home. The electrodes were attached to the pregnant women's abdomen in the out patient clinic and the women sent home with simple instructions to connect the leads to the electrodes and switch the unit on in the early evening. In the morning the women returned the unit for upload or it was collected by a Midwife.
As an alternative the recorded signals can be sent in real time using a mobile phone and internet based viewing and analysis platform avialble from www.trium.de or other third party service provider.