🗓️ April 7th marks World Health Day and this year’s campaign is called ‘Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’, which focuses on maternal and newborn health. Today, we are sharing a prospective feasibility study that used our technology to examine the use of wearable sensors in the NICU to measure parental stress. Understandably, parents with children in the NICU are likely to experience a great deal of stress. However the ability to measure this in real-time could reveal important information about the stress factors. 1️⃣2️⃣ parents with infants in the NICU wore Empatica’s #WearableTechnology to measure electrodermal activity (EDA), an indicator of the autonomic nervous system which is commonly used to assess stress levels. This was measured during interactions with their babies, including holding them, massage, reading, touching, etc. 📝 Feasibility was assessed by examining recruitment/enrollment, retention/adherence, acceptability, sensor usability, and changes in EDA waveforms based on potential stressors. 📈 Preliminary findings were positive, showing that wearable sensors could successfully be used in the NICU. This paves the way for more research to be carried out, to not only assess stress but to use the data to find ways to reduce stressful moments in such environments for parents. Read the full study here: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…