Fetal-Maternal Monitoring during Pregnancy and Labor: Trends and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past two decades, several improvements in technologies for fetal and neonatal health have been achieved. However, no significant reductions in stillbirths, neonatal deaths, severe brain injuries from hypoxic-ischemic events, and cardiovascular diseases occurred. On the one hand, the complex pathogenesis of perinatal mortality, neonatal brain injury, and congenital heart diseases hamper our understanding of the underpinning of such important aspects. On the other hand, no disruptive technology has emerged, which means that significant advancement in perinatal diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment is still desired. Remarkably, better detection and prevention are needed to advance obstetric and neonatal care around the world. Overall, this requires a multidisciplinary approach across the entire pregnancy care pathway, incorporating perspectives from researchers, clinicians, medical device manufacturers, software developers, and other relevant stakeholders such as policy makers and patient communities.   

The aim of this Special Issue of Bioengineering is to represent the research, along with the associated challenges and opportunities, for innovative methods and technologies for fetal-maternal monitoring, diagnostics and therapeutics during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. We are excited to provide a view from both academic institutions and the industry spanning all stakeholders, from both researchers and device/algorithm developers as well as the voices of the clinical care providers and the patients.

Topics covered will include but are not limited to,

• advances in the physiological and clinical understanding of fetal development and pathogenesis of perinatal mortality
• fetal heart monitoring using cardiotocography and maternal abdominal electrocardiogram
• fetal neurodevelopment
• new medical devices for perinatal care
• signal processing techniques
• artificial intelligence applications
• regulatory aspects
• challenges in the development of large-scale predictive models of fetal compromise throughout the entire pregnancy.

Dr. Aimée Lovers
Dr. Giulia Baldazzi
Dr. Nicolò Pini
Dr. Danilo Pani
Dr. Antoniya Georgieva
Prof. Dr. Patrice Abry
Dr. Martin Gerbert Frasch
Guest Editors

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