What is Kangaroo Mother Care

This chapter focuses on monitoring vital health parameters for a particular group of patients - critically ill newborn infants in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) at hospitals. These neonates are extremely tiny and vulnerable. Thus, health monitoring for the neonates provides crucial parameters for urgent diagnoses and corresponding medical procedures, subsequently increasing the survival rates. Neonatal monitoring is a multidisciplinary area which involves a unique integration of knowledge from medical science, design, technology and social study. In this chapter, the authors introduce current status and new developments in neonatal monitoring. They present some ongoing research examples of non-invasive neonatal monitoring designed and developed at the department of Industrial Design and the department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in collaboration with the department of neonatology, Máxima Medical Center (MMC), Veldhoven, in the Netherlands, including the first prototype smart jacket, a wireless power supply and video signal processing for neonatal monitoring. Challenges and social impacts of non-invasive neonatal monitoring will be discussed.