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Updated: Jun 27, 2026
Transcutaneous Microcirculatory Imaging in Preterm Neonates
Published on: December 31, 2015
High-resolution cry analysis in preterm newborn infants
C Manfredi1, L Bocchi, S Orlandi
1Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via S. Marta 3, 50139 Firenze, Italy. manfredi@det.unifi.it
Insights
Analyzing infant cries offers a non-invasive method to assess respiratory health in neonatal critical care. This acoustic analysis provides insights into neuro-physiological parameters, aiding in the monitoring of preterm infants.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal critical care
- Bioacoustics
- Infant respiratory monitoring
Background:
- Preterm and low-birth-weight infants frequently experience respiratory issues, including insufficient ventilation and apnea.
- Infant crying, while communicative, can strain respiratory function and impact blood oxygenation in vulnerable neonates.
- Acoustic analysis of infant cries is a non-invasive, cost-effective method linked to neuro-physiological status.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and present a user-friendly software tool for analyzing the acoustic characteristics of newborn infant cries.
- To enable robust tracking of key acoustic parameters in short, time-varying cry signals.
- To provide high-resolution insights into cry signal features for clinical application.
Main Methods:
- Development of novel, user-friendly software for acoustic signal analysis.
- Application of the software to track main acoustic parameters in infant cry signals.
- Focus on analyzing very short and time-varying signal frames characteristic of newborn cries.
Main Results:
- The developed software enables robust tracking of acoustic parameters in infant cries.
- The tool provides a high-resolution analysis of cry signal characteristics.
- Successfully addresses the challenges of analyzing complex, rapidly changing cry signals.
Conclusions:
- Acoustic analysis of infant cries is a valuable tool for neonatal monitoring.
- The new software facilitates detailed assessment of cry acoustics, aiding clinical practice.
- This non-invasive technique offers significant potential for evaluating infant respiratory status and neuro-physiology.
Abstract:
Infant monitoring is a common procedure in clinical practice in neonatal critical care units. A number of vital functions are monitored, such as heart beat, breathing, blood flow, etc. Specifically, preterm and/or low-birth-weight infants often present respiratory problems that require monitoring. These may range from insufficient ventilation to apnoea. One of the most common events that may affect the respiratory flow is crying, a physiological action made by the infant to communicate and draw attention, but, for a preterm infant, this action requires great effort, which may cause distress and even may have an adverse impact on blood oxygenation. Acoustic analysis of newborn infant cry is thus of importance, since it is related to other basic neuro-physiological parameters. Being easy to perform, cheap and completely non-invasive, it can be successfully applied in many circumstances. The newborn infant cry is characterised by very high fundamental frequency (F(0)) and resonance frequency (RFs) values, with abrupt changes and voiced/unvoiced features of very short duration in a single utterance. To deal with such signals, a new user-friendly software tool has been developed, that allows robust tracking of main acoustic parameters on very short and time-varying signal frames. The software developed provides the user with a high-resolution picture of the cry signal characteristics.
