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Technology that allows mobile phones and computer games to sense motion is being used in a world-first Australian project aimed at preventing stillbirths.
Doctors are developing a belt, fitted with tiny accelerometers used in the iPhone and Nintendo Wii, which can be worn by women in their final months of pregnancy.
The device will monitor the baby's movements - from those great rib-thumping kicks down to more subtle ticklish flutters.
'We know 10 per cent of mums get worried about reduced movement and it is very confusing, no one quite knows how much movement is good,' said Professor Paul Colditz, of the University of Queensland.
'There are so many variables in there which can change a mum's perception.'
The belt has been trialled by about 200 pregnant women so far at Victoria's Royal Women's Hospital, and Queensland's The Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital (RBWH) and the Mater Mothers' Hospital.
Prof Colditz, the RBWH's research director, said the project would allow researchers to generate a picture of healthy baby movement.
The information, in conjunction with the belt, would be used to alert doctors when babies were not moving enough.
Prof Colditz said it was hoped the belt would be added to the armament of tests used to determine if an induced, or caesarean, birth was needed.
Currently, worried mothers are advised to sit quietly and feel their stomach for any activity and this can be followed by heart monitoring and an ultrasound.
'We're hoping to be able to detect a reduction in either the quantity or quality of the type of movement,' Prof Colditz said.
'We think we'll be able to get into the space earlier in the development of foetal stress, and deliver a baby that is going to be entirely well.'
The belt's research and development phase is likely to take another three years, Prof Colditz said.
'An accelerometer is not much bigger than a pin head,' he said.
'This is using technology out there in video games (consoles) and mobile phones to focus on a real clinical problem ... why do some babies die unexpectedly in an apparently normal pregnancy?'
About 2,000 babies are stillborn every year in Australia and many of these cases occur unexpectedly in the final weeks of pregnancy.
The project has received support from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) organisation SIDS and Kids.
Red Nose Day, SIDS and Kids' major fundraiser, will be held on June 26.
