AcCorps: A Low-Cost 3D Printed Stethoscope for Fetal Phonocardiography

Abstract

The analysis of fetal heart rate provides valuable information regarding the fetus wellbeing. Fetal phonocardiography is a low-cost and passive method allowing the acquisition of FHR by recording acoustic vibrations on the mother’s abdomen. However, most of available stethoscopes are not optimized for a robust acquisition of fetal heart sound. In this publication, we investigated a new design of low-cost and 3D printed stethoscope. This device was optimized to provide an acoustic amplification especially in the low-frequency band which corresponds to the fetal heart sounds. This device was tested i) in silico, ii) on a test bench and iii) on 5 pregnant volunteers.