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Evaluation of a digital stethoscope in transitioning term infants after birth
  1. Vincent D Gaertner1,2,
  2. Ajay Chintan Kevat2,3,
  3. Peter G Davis2,4,5,
  4. C Omar Farouk Kamlin2,4,5
  1. 1 School of Medicine, Universitatsklinikum Regensburg, Regensburg, Bayern, Germany
  2. 2 Neonatal Services, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3 Department of Paediatric Intensive Care, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. 4 Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  5. 5 Newborn Research, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr C Omar Farouk Kamlin, Division of Newborn Services, The Royal Women’s Hospital, 20 Flemington Road, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia; omar.kamlin{at}thewomens.org.au

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Prompt and accurate assessment of a newborn’s heart rate (HR) is critical when making decisions during neonatal transition.1 Recently, a digital stethoscope (DS) was found to be promising, but requiring improvements in precision and accuracy.2 We aimed to investigate the performance of an updated version of the DS to evaluate neonatal HR in the delivery room (DR).

A convenience sample of infants transitioning after an elective caesarean section were enrolled with written informed parental consent. Immediately after birth, the infants were assessed on a warming bed; three-lead ECG (IntelliVue X2; Philips, Suresnes, France) was applied to the infant’s chest followed by placing the DS (diameter 36 mm, depth 25 mm) with attached smart device (Clinicloud3) over the praecordium. Video recordings captured both displays and data were recorded every second for 60 s. Episodes of crying were documented. Data were analysed first using all data points available …

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Footnotes

  • Contributors All authors were involved in planning, conducting and reporting of the work. VDG recruited the patients, watched the videos, performed data analyses, interpreted data and wrote the first version of the manuscript. ACK, COFK and PGD conceived the study and were involved in data interpretation and manuscript writing. COFK and PGD supervised the project. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

  • Funding Endeavour Research Fellowship (Australia) for VDG (ERF_RDDH_5276_2016), NHMRC (Australia) funding Prof Peter G. Davis (App ID 1059111), Dr C. Omar F. Kamlin (App ID 1073533). NHMRC program grant for P.G.D, C.O.F.K.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent Parental consent obtained.

  • Ethics approval The Human Research and Ethics Committees of The Royal Womens Hospital, Melbourne.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.