Optimisation of Cool Tub to Prevent Brain Damage in Infant
C. Athira, M. Keerthana1, K. Priyangaa2, V. Radhika3

1C.Athira, Department of B.E. Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore, (Tamil Nadu), India.
2M.Keerthana, Department of B.E. Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore, (Tamil Nadu), India.
3K.Priyangaa, Department of B.E. Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore, (Tamil Nadu), India.

Manuscript received on 20 March 2014 | Revised Manuscript received on 25 March 2014 | Manuscript published on 30 March 2014 | PP: 27-29 | Volume-3 Issue-1, March 2014 | Retrieval Number: A0981033114/2014©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: Neonatology is a branch of pediatrics that deals with the medical care of newborn infants. Neonatal Encephalopathy is a clinical and not an etiologic term that describes an abnormal non-behavioral state consisting of decreased level of consciousness and usually other signs of brain stem and/or motor dysfunction. Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy is a disorder caused due to birth asphyxia. Asphyxia means lack of oxygen. Therapeutic hypothermia has been shown to decrease the risk of brain injury in newborn. Brain hypothermia, is induced by cooling a baby to around 35°C for three days after birth. Some of the cooling methods are antipyretics, fans, ice packs, cold fluids, water filled blankets or garments, forced cold air and cool caps. Cool tub is the most prevalent technology. It is a tub designed to cool the brain of neonates with oxygen deprivation during birth in order to prevent brain damage. The cool tub has cooling unit, in which cooling is provided by cool pack placed in it, infant should placed within four hours of birth. The baby was placed in the tub for 72 hours after which the baby’s temperature is slowly raised again over the following four hours. The idea of the cool tub is to cool the brain soon after the injury to stop cell suicide in the brain. The aim of this work is to monitor the temperature of the baby and hence maintain the same by automatically cooling and re-warming the material inside the cap. This process is done using temperature transducer, microcontroller, cooling unit and a warming unit.
Keywords: Birth Asphyxia, Hypothermia, Neonatal Encephalopathy, Cool Cap.

Scope of the Article: Bioinformatics