Knitted Multi-Functional Clothing - the Main Part of a Textile Incubator for Premature Babies

Abstract

This publication presents an innovative concept for the construction of a textile incubator. A literature study was conducted concerning care for premature babies at neonatology intensive care units. Based on the physiological requirements of preterm infants, a textile incubator model was designed and manufactured. The incubator presented is composed of several layers of material. The primary function of the incubator is to maintain thermal, sensory and humidity comfort, to cool the newborn in case of programmed therapeutic hypothermia, as well as to maintain hospital sterilisation. In the first stage of work on the textile incubator we were focused on problems of the production and maintenance of heat inside the product and cooling the newborn. The most important element of the incubator construction is the heating-cooling-moistening mat, the aim of which is to deliver or receive heat from the premature baby, and to maintain adequate environmental moisture. Because the construction of the humidification mechanism is quite complicated, it is not presented in this publication. The assumed extreme values of temperatures of the functional mat are in the following ranges: for additional heating-such as stationary incubators T max = 39 °C, with a precision of 1 °C; in the case of cooling in the medical hypothermia planned T min = 29 °C, with a precision of 1 °C. The mat was made in the form of a 3D structure of three-layer weft knitted fabric with channels, manufactured on a cylindrical rib-knitting machine, needle gauge E20. Technological and structural parameters of the three-layer knitted mat manufactured were defined. A test stand for the analysis of heat transfer of the heating mat was designed and constructed.