The heartbeat of a premature baby

Small hands, small legs, a tiny body, the inability to take the first breath on your own, a weak heart and many other difficulties with all vital organs. These unprotected babies are born premature babies. This is a shock for the whole family and no one expects the baby to hurry to see this world. In order to save a premature baby, all medical powers are included and the most modern medical equipment is needed. That level of equipment can determine whether the baby will live or not. The goal of our project is to help prematurely born children survive. 

The “gold standard” of monitoring in the birth hall during the provision of primary and resuscitation care to premature infants is the monitoring of indicators by the method of pulse oximetry. Registration of indicators by the method of pulse oximetry begins with the first minute of life. Pulse oximeter is the most important means of monitoring in the modern practice of nursing premature babies. It is a non-invasive medical device that checks the oxygen level in the patient’s bloodstream and issues an alarm as soon as it detects the least unsafe change.

This, at first glance, simple and small device, as it turned out, has a rather complicated principle of operation. If to describe in a nutshell, the pulse oximeter consists of several main parts: a sensor with LEDs (two different waves - infrared and red), a microprocessor and a display. The sensors are configured in a special way, in the process of turning on the device, they emit light that passes through the tissue and is absorbed by the blood. The degree of absorption will directly depend on the degree of oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in the blood.

All data is processed by a microprocessor and fed to the display in the form of digital values or graphs. Usually, the device remembers the previous values, which allow you to study the entire history of the disease clearly. Without them, monitoring the baby’s life indicators is impossible. And it is so important that every child has his own device. Unfortunately, the level of state financing of our hospitals leaves much to be desired. Doctors simply do not have the equipment to help everyone. Our task is to fix it.

The goal of the project is to purchase a pulse oximeter in the Department of intensive care of newborns, Chernivtsi Regional Children's Clinical Hospital, so that all the children have enough modern equipment and all the kids receive proper care and assistance. Your UAH matters, because there is no small help! Help us help kids!