Wearable infant hydration monitor

Hydration monitoring, especially for infants, is generally limited to clinical environments. In these settings hydration is most often assessed using chemical analysis techniques. In this work we show our efforts to bring hydration monitoring to consumer market with a proof-of-concept wearable bio-impedance analyzer for infant hydration monitoring. While this technique is limited in that it cannot quantify total body water in an absolute sense, it is ideal for measuring changes to detect dehydration. Specifically, our sensor is implemented using an Analog Devices 5933 impedance analyzer. We combine this chip’s capabilities with an RFduino for Bluetooth communication with a smartphone. In our smartphone application we are able to monitor changes in hydration levels in real time. Finally, we test the capabilities of our system on two adult subjects. For all trials we measured a relative decrease in bio-impedance, and an increase in hydration.