Therapeutic equipment Lecture (3)

Baby incubator PREMATURE BABY Preterm birth are also known as premature birth, is the birth of the baby at least 37 weeks gestational age. Premature infants are at greater risk for delays in development, hearing problems and visual problems.

NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT Neonatal intensive care unit is known as intensive care nursery especially in the care of premature or ill newborn infants. The NICU combines advanced technology and trained health care professionals to provide specialized care for the tiniest patients.

The first official neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) for neonates was established in 1961 at Vanderbilt University by Professor Mildred Stahlman. Incubator is a device in which premature or unusually small babies are placed and which provides a controlled and protective environment for their care.

The incubator is considered as an air conditioned room with special specification which we can be control with respect to the condition of baby in incubator. The incubator is an isolated area environment with no dust, bacteria, and has the ability to control temperature, humidity, and oxygen to remain them in acceptable levels.

Incubator is designed to keep baby warm, to monitor many of their vital body functions like heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and to support their breathing if necessary. The main physical variables affecting the incubator environment are temperature, humidity, oxygen saturation, light.

INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT SPECIFICATIONS The incubator is provided with motor and fan that sucks the air through it. Then the air-pass on to a heating grid followed by a water evaporator to gain the required humidity. If it is necessary oxygen can be added. The modern incubators are fitted with safety standards, voice, and light alarm indicators of emergency. The three important parameters specify the internal environment of the baby incubator is temperature, humidity, and oxygen concentrations.

TEMPERATURE The infants have very low thermal regulation and temperature regulation is one of the most important factors which affect the preterm. It is not possible for the infant body to cope with the thermal loss. This requires the body of the infant to be in a moist heated environment. Therefore temperature is one of the most important factors that need to be maintained with minimum variations.

HUMIDITY Many problems like hypothermia, dehydration will occur in infants if they have less humidity. These problems can be reduced if the preterm infants are nursed at high relative humidity. Also the skin temperature increases and the distribution of surface temperature will be more if an infant is nursed at a high relative humidity

There are three main measurement of humidity: absolute, relative and specific. Absolute humidity is the water content of air at a given temperature expressed in gram per cubic meter. Relative humidity, expressed as a percent, measure the current absolute humidity relative to the maximum (highest point) for the temperature. Specific humidity is a ratio of the water vapor content of the mixture to the total air content on a mass basis.

ALARM An alarm system gives an audible, visual or other form of alarm signal about a problem or condition. Alarm monitoring is quick and detailed communication between security system and the central station of security provider. The control panel registers an emergency event and sends a signal to the central monitoring station, where the appropriate authorities are notified.

Alarms are activated only when the parameters attached to gets out of their specified ranges. In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) alarms are attached with the incubators. These alarms will make a beep sound when the parameters which are to be controlled in the incubator cross its range. There are different types of alarms which are used: Temperature alarm CO2 level alarm Relative humidity level alarm Power failure alarm Battery low alarm

Components of baby incubator

TEMPERATURE SENSOR Many different types of temperature sensors are commercially available, and the type of temperature sensor that will be used in any particular application will depend on several factors. There're many types of devices that can be employed as temperature sensors. They include integrated circuits (ICs), resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), thermistors, and thermocouples.

RESISTANCE TEMPERATURE DETECTORs (RTD) The Resistance Temperature Detector, or the RTD, is a sensor whose resistance changes with temperature. Typically built of a platinum (Pt) wire wrapped around a ceramic bobbin, the RTD exhibits behavior which is more accurate and more linear over wide temperature ranges than a thermocouple.

Platinum (Pt) the Most Common 100W, 1000W Standard Values Good Linearity - Better than Thermocouple