For this new work, the team evaluated the wearable ultrasound patch through a multi-center clinical study conducted at Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health and the John Radcliffe Hospital at the University of Oxford. In tests, the patch produced measurements that closely matched those from standard handheld ultrasound devices. Researchers also collected continuous monitoring data for hours at a time across 62 pregnancies, including healthy pregnancies as well as pregnancies complicated by gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure and abnormal fetal growth.
Next, the team plans to integrate the patch into a compact electronic system that could eventually allow the patch to operate wirelessly.
On November 1, 2025, Xu moved his primary academic affiliation to Stanford University, where he is a faculty member of the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, with courtesy appointments in Electrical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
Full study: “Fetal monitoring for high-risk pregnancies using a wearable ultrasound patch.”
This work was supported by Wellcome Leap (HER01430), the National Institutes of Health (1R01EB033464-01 and 1R01HL171652-01) and Accelerating Innovation to Market at UC San Diego.
Disclosures: Sheng Xu is a cofounder of Softsonics LLC. Maria Tome, Lawrence Impley and Antoniya Georgieva, all at University of Oxford, are cofounders of Safer Birth LTD. Aris T. Papageorghiou (University of Oxford) is a Senior Scientific Advisor of Intelligent Ultrasound Ltd. All other authors declare no competing interests.
