Long-Term Measurement of Maternal Pulse Rate Dynamics Using a Home-Based Sleep Monitoring System

Major adaptations occur in the maternal cardiovascular system during pregnancy and after delivery; knowledge of these changes is essential to the health management of pregnant women. This paper presents a longitudinal study and proposes a methodology to monitor daily pulse rates (PRs) and characterize the weekly changes in maternal PRs before and after delivery. PRs were recorded during nightly sleep using an automatic monitoring system. PRs of the nonpregnant woman were taken as a reference. Weekly PR properties were characterized by histogram and a two-Gaussian mixture model. A coupling use of sample entropy and pulse rate was applied to cluster the stages during recovery period after delivery. Results depicted a profile of individual's cardiac recovery process in late pregnancy and after delivery. The results reveal that maternal PRs show different patterns in various stages of recovery. Later stages of recovery seemed to require a much longer period. The present study introduced a convenient approach in long-term maternal cardiac condition monitoring.