Wearable devices for antenatal fetal monitoring: a systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Stillbirth and hypoxic brain injury remain major global challenges. Conventional tools such as cardiotocography (CTG) are limited by intermittent, hospital-based use and have been linked to increased intervention without clear improvements in outcomes. Wearable devices offer portable, continuous, non-invasive monitoring that could enhance detection of fetal compromise, improve patient experience, and extend surveillance beyond hospital settings. Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of wearable devices for antenatal fetal monitoring on maternal, fetal, and obstetric outcomes, and to map evidence on feasibility, acceptability, cost, and scalability. Search Strategy We searched Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science from 2000 to July 2025. Selection Criteria Studies of wearable devices for antenatal fetal monitoring that reported fetal or maternal parameters, clinical outcomes, or acceptability were eligible. Data Collection and Analysis Two reviewers independently screened, extracted data, and assessed quality using NIH and Newcastle–Ottawa tools. Data extraction focused on clinical outcomes and acceptability; cost and scalability were captured when reported. Narrative synthesis was undertaken due to heterogeneity. Main Results Forty-one studies met inclusion criteria, spanning wearable CTG, fetal ECG, phonocardiography, photoplethysmography, near-infrared spectroscopy, and fetal movement monitors. Thirty-nine studies assessed feasibility or acceptability, which was generally high. Only two studies reported pregnancy outcomes, both showing non-inferiority of remote CTG compared with standard care. Evidence on cost and scalability was sparse. Conclusions Wearable fetal monitoring devices are feasible and acceptable but lack evidence of clinical benefit. Large, outcome-focused trials with standardised reporting of acceptability, cost, and scalability are needed to define their role in antenatal care and inform future guidelines.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.008 | 0.037 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".