NEWBORN INCUBATOR

NEWBORN INCUBATOR

GLOSSARY

• Bililuces: Blue fluorescent lights used to treat jaundice.

• Bilirubin: A yellowish waste product that is formed when red blood cells break down

• Blood gases: Levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood. 

• Jaundice: Yellowing of the skin and eyes due to the accumulation in the blood of a waste product called bilirubin.

• Premature baby: A baby born before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy.

• Phototherapy: Treatment for jaundice whereby the baby is placed under blue fluorescent lights, sometimes called "bililuces." 

• Radiant heater: an open bed with an upper heating element to keep the baby at a warm temperature. 

INCUBATOR

The incubator is a closed chamber that has the purpose of providing an environment conducive to the maturation of premature or newborn babies. It is made of transparent material, has a padding to put the baby to bed and has air intakes and windows.

In addition, they include control systems that allow to know in real time the weight, the heart rate and the brain activity of the child. That is, indicate minute by minute the actions performed by the baby's body.

Functions of the incubator

There are certain characteristics that an incubator must have in order to effectively meet its objective. These are the main ones:

• Servocontrol: it is a sensor that sticks on the baby's skin to measure its temperature. If it is low, the incubator automatically emits heat. If it is high, it does the opposite. 
• Isolation: one of the essential tasks of these devices. The air filters that the incubator has keep away the germs and allergens that are outside. That is why it is such an important element for babies with problems in their immune system. 
• Humidity sensors: in the same way in which the temperature is controlled, the humidity inside the appliance is measured. If there is very little, dehydration of the baby could be favored. 
• Oxygen source: with the aim of preventing respiratory diseases in neonates, the incubator offers an environment with a high oxygen content.
•  Assisted breathing: in severe cases where babies can not breathe on their own, they are incubated and a pump is placed to help them complete this process mechanically.
•  UV rays: the ultraviolet light in the incubator, which is administered in moderate amounts, is used for the activation of endogenous vitamin D and to combat jaundice, which is the yellowish color seen in the skin of some newborns

The incubator provides the fundamental tools for the control of newborn functions. It also allows isolating it from environmental threats that can cause complications in beings so small and, often, defenseless. 

The most common cases in which it is necessary to place the baby in an incubator are:

• Birth of premature babies: it is considered premature to that baby who has not exceeded 37 weeks of pregnancy. This can be caused by several reasons, such as high blood pressure of the mother or complications in the final phase of pregnancy. The incubator allows you to shelter them until their development is completed.
•  Low birth weight: babies underweight are considered to be those with less than 2.5 kilograms at birth. Whether it is a birth on time or premature, the incubator is responsible for protecting the baby while it is delivered orally or by infusion the nutrients that your body needs. 
• Difficulties to maintain the temperature: as it has a constant temperature, the incubator allows to counteract this deficit.
•  Deficiencies in the immune system: until they develop the capacity of self-defense against pathogens, babies - usually premature babies - are conserved in this environment free of germs and microbes that may represent a threat to their health.

There are four main types of incubators depending on where the heat comes from:

•  The closed ones have a glass cover that completely covers the baby and does not expose it to the ambient air. The heat comes out from the bottom, where the baby is lying. Its main characteristic is that the baby is not subjected to cold currents and will not lose liquids by evaporation because it is in a medium in which the air is also hot.
•  The open ones are also called radiant heat because there is not a wall that covers the baby, but in the upper part, at a reasonable distance, there is a tower that has a source of radiant heat.
• Stationary Incubators: In this group are the incubators that are located in the areas of emergency, intensive care, intermediate care and temporary care and eventually in areas assigned to physiological care.
•  Transfer incubators: as the name implies, are equipment used to transport neonates either within the medical unit or outside the medical unit. Said transport can be land or air. In general, they are lighter and smaller in order to facilitate their mobility and handling to enter or exit emergency vehicles, operating theaters, x-ray rooms, etc.

POWER STAGE 

The power stage is designed to control the inmersion resistor and the hot resistor, when the arduinos send 5v to the power stage, the resistors turn on and begin to generate temperature and humidity.

NEWBORN INCUBATOR DESIGN 

NEWBORN INCUBATOR RESULTS 

Call libraries to LCD, DHT11 and matricial keyboard

Code of the Keyboard we declared a pair of constants rows and columns of the keyboard, and columns of the keyboard, and ones arrays for indicate to the library what pins of arduino correspondence to rows and columns of the keypad.
We defined what symbols corresponding to each position of the keys too.

To read the humidity and temperature the sensor brings its own library, as shown below.

Characterization of the fans

To start, the user set the weight and week's gestation as shown in the following tables

Temperature

Humidity

According to the tables, a linear regression is calculated to control the humidity and temperature values through the speed of the motors controlled by the PWM, as shown below.