Enhanced Neonatal Pulse Oximetry Sounds for the First Minutes of Life: A Laboratory Trial

Auditory enhancements to the pulse oximetry tone may help clinicians detect deviations from target ranges for oxygen saturation (SpO₂) and heart rate (HR).

Clinical guidelines recommend target ranges for SpO₂ and HR during neonatal resuscitation in the first 10 minutes after birth. The pulse oximeter currently maps HR to tone rate, and SpO₂ to tone pitch. However, deviations from target ranges for SpO₂ and HR are not easy to detect.

Forty-one participants were presented with 30-second simulated scenarios of an infant's SpO₂ and HR levels in the first minutes after birth. Tremolo marked distinct HR ranges and formants marked distinct SpO₂ ranges. Participants were randomly allocated to conditions: (a) No Enhancement control, (b) Enhanced HR Only, (c) Enhanced SpO₂ Only, and (d) Enhanced Both.

Participants in the Enhanced HR Only and Enhanced SpO₂ Only conditions identified HR and SpO₂ ranges, respectively, more accurately than participants in the No Enhancement condition, ps < 0.001. In the Enhanced Both condition, the tremolo enhancement of HR did not affect participants' ability to identify SpO₂ range, but the formants enhancement of SpO₂ may have attenuated participants' ability to identify tremolo-enhanced HR range.

Tremolo and formant enhancements improve range identification for HR and SpO₂, respectively, and could improve clinicians' ability to identify SpO₂ and HR ranges in the first minutes after birth.

Enhancements to the pulse oximeter tone to indicate clinically important ranges could improve the management of oxygen delivery to the neonate during resuscitation in the first 10 minutes after birth.