Heartlight campaign to offer lifeline for at-risk newborns

A new campaign has been launched by The University of Nottingham to raise £115,000 for the development of a heart rate monitor that could mean the difference between life and death for the one in 10 babies born every year requiring resuscitation. The tiny Heartlight sensor is a hands-free electronic device that allows doctors and midwives to continually monitor a baby's heart rate during resuscitation. It could eventually replace the traditional stethoscope method of monitoring heart rate which is open to human error, interrupts resuscitation and can fail to detect sudden and serious changes to a baby's medical condition. The Heartlight sensor, being developed by Dr Barrie Hayes-Gill, Dr John Crowe and Dr Mark Grubb in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in collaboration with neonatologists Dr Don Sharkey in the University's Division of Human Development and Professor Neil Marlow at the Institute of Women's Health, UCL, uses a small optical probe attached to the baby's hat to measure changes in blood flow under the skin of the baby's forehead to detect the baby's pulse. Dr Don Sharkey said: "There are more than 700,000 babies born every year in the UK and, while most come into the world healthy and without a problem, around 70,000 newborns do need some form of resuscitation. "When a newborn baby fails to establish a normal breathing pattern, every second counts. The longer a baby goes without oxygen, the greater the risk of developing long-term disabilities including physical and learning impairment.