They created an app that allows you to listen to your baby's heartbeat with only your mobile phone.
A team of researchers at the University of Washington has developed a pilot app that allows users to listen to and measure a fetus' heartbeat during pregnancy using only their mobile phone. This app, DopFone, aims to make fetal monitoring easier by eliminating the need for costly medical equipment or frequent hospital visits.
In other words, the app facilitates basic fetal heart rate monitoring at home using a mobile phone.
The app produces a very high-pitched, barely audible sound through the phone's speaker. This sound travels through the abdomen and bounces back inside the body. When the fetal heartbeat occurs, it causes slight changes in the echo that returns to the phone.
The microphone then picks up these changes, and an AI system analyzes them to calculate your heart rate in beats per minute. To take the measurement, place the phone on your stomach for about a minute.
In a study of 23 pregnant women between weeks 19 and 39 of pregnancy, the app's results were very similar to those obtained using medical devices for consultations, according to Digital Trends. The average difference was about two heartbeats per minute, a figure within the acceptable range for healthcare professionals.
The tests were conducted by placing the phone in different positions, which is important for simulating home use, and accuracy decreased slightly in people with a higher BMI, although the measurements remained valid.
While the app still has some limitations and isn't ready for general use—it hasn't been tested on multiple pregnancies or cases of fetal heart rhythm abnormalities, and all tests were conducted on iPhones in controlled medical settings—there's no data from the first trimester, and no evidence that it can detect serious problems.