Frequently Asked Questions

PregnaScan is the name of a new telemedicine device and “digital lab” service that increases the efficiency of pregnant care. Pregnant moms can help their doctors with the information provided by measurements which they can perform from the comfort of their home regularly. New parameters that haven’t been traceable until now can get into the field of vision of the doctor, and that can give a real chance to decrease the number and severity of the most common pathological cases of pregnancy. Its aim is to avoid the problems and illnesses by detecting the tendencies leading to these illnesses in time. PregnaScan system consist of the following parts: a special measuring device, smartphone, cloud, evaluation surface. If you are interested in the details, or even you’d like to try the system, then subscribe for PregnaScan Magazine, or register by clicking on the link on the top of the website.

Pregnant moms (or their partners) prior to their 30th week of their pregnancy, and

• who are expecting their first baby, therefore everything is new for them during this period, perhaps they are afraid of the unknown, and they would like to have a higher level of security for these 9 months,
• who have a higher risk of some kind of pregnancy-related illness – with which they are reluctant to settle, and want to follow the state of their health precisely,
• who have had some kind of discrepancy during an earlier pregnancy (on maternal side!), and they would like to observe the changes of their bodies more closely during these 9 months.

Risk factors are factors that are more likely to end up in a disease when you are in the presence of them. In case of pregnancy they may include: overweight, maternal age (35+), smoking, hypertension, insulin resistance, possibly already developed diabetes or other maternal chronic illnesses, twin pregnancy, first pregnancy, etc.

We don’t recommend PregnaScan, if

• you don’t have the proper technical devices (smartphone, internet access),
• if you want a magical system that provides you with 100% safety, and substitutes every medical examinations (we can’t guarantee that)
• if you only like to try something new when all of your friends are already using it.

Many parameters of PregnaScan become uninterpretable if someone has a severe cardiac arrhythmia. Also, since the device needs to be clipped on your finger people with various developmental disorders or limb/complete finger deficiency cannot use the service at the moment. Our development team is already working on coping with these challenges.

The first 100 applicants can already join the first Premier Program of Pregnascan through our website.

Find the registration link on the top of the page.

In the earliest possible period of your pregnancy, but in the 30th week at the latest, since at that time there is a better chance to an efficient prevention in case of detecting any discrepancies.

PregnaScan is not designed for disease screening, so it cannot be used for this purpose. Instead, it gives information about changes in the health conditions of the mother when used frequently. The literature references of the parameters measured by PregnaScan focus primarily on hypertonia - preeclampsia spectrum and gestational diabetes.

As we follow the parameters of the mother the system is not suitable for screening fetal developmental disorders. However, you can help prevent any fetal condition in which the disease pattern endangering the fetus is developed due to the mom’s illness.

No, it is designed to complement the obligatory examinations.

Basically, every physician can evaluate the measurements if they have studied enough the adequate literature. However, there are doctors who have been using the system for a long time, so we can recommend them primarily.

The evaluating doctor of PregnaScan will contact the specialist of your choice, so the doctor attending pregnant care will be aware of all the information PregnaScan has detected.

A professional brochure for physicians can be found on the website, from which they can get to know the literature that the system is based on. In addition, we will provide a printed brochure for all those who sign up for the Premier Program.

The medical background provided by PregnaScan gives complete information about your pregnancy when complementing your own medical examinations, so you do not need to make any changes in this matter.

Pulse oximeter is a simple, generally small-sized, plastic-covered diagnostic device that anyone can use by clipping it on their finger. It is used to quickly and easily measure oxygen saturation and current pulse. Pulse oximeter is used in many areas of medicine, such as anesthesia, surgical interventions, and chronic cardiovascular and lung diseases. The fact that using this device does not cause any discomfort or risk adds to its popularity.

The principle of pulse oximetry is photopletysmography. Its essence is that the finger is lit by a LED light source with visible or infrared light. Some of the light is reflected or scattered while a part passes through the finger. The intensity of the light passing through the finger is recorded by a photodetector. The captured light intensity can be calculated using various methods of oxygen saturation and pulse, as well as depicting the pulse curve.

Measurement can be influenced by a number of factors. Glossy nail polish can impair the accuracy of the measurement and lead to false results. The study does not provide a reliable result when the measurement is performed on a cold limb, because the arteries become narrower. It is advisable to carry out the measurements in comfortable environment, on at least room temperature for the most accurate results. Due to the comparability of the results, it is worth taking the measurements at the same time of day. Avoid the consumption of caffeinated drinks and large quantities of food in the few hours before the measurement, if possible.

You can gain information about the oxygen saturation of your blood during the measurement. Oxygen saturation, as mentioned above, gives information on the percentage of oxygen supply protein in the arterial blood, i.e. hemoglobin that binds with oxygen. In healthy subjects this value is normally above 96%, while smokers and those with chronic pulmonary and heart disease may measure lower than about 90%. Below 90% we are talking about severe oxygen supply disruption, but this can only be assessed along with clinical symptoms (suffocation, sickness). Pulse means how much your heart beats per minute. If someone’s heart operates on a frequency of 70 it means that their heart muscles generally contract and relax 70 times during one minute. The pulse may vary in relatively wide ranges among healthy people; it is optimal between 60 and 90 minutes in a relaxed state. The athletes’ heart rate is generally low, which in their case indicates the fitness of their heart, but a pulse too low, not in the case of athletes, is not a sign of health! A low pulse is often measured in case of high blood pressure and arrhythmia. During physical activity our pulse can rise up to 180. The rate of increase usually depends on the intensity of the sports activity, and it is inversely proportional to our fitness condition. This means that the fitter you are, the less your pulse rises during the same intensity of movement. The pulse of children, adolescents, young women, and pregnant women can be higher even in a relaxed state, and it can temporarily increase in a stressful state, this is not considered to be abnormal. Constantly measured high values ​​in a relaxed state may be pathological, often occurring alongside with low blood pressure, heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. If your pulse is permanently below 50 or above 100, let your doctor know. The pulse oximeter can also record the pulse curve beyond the above two parameters. Analyzing the pulse curve provides valuable information on the condition of our cardiovascular system and nervous system, and in case of multiple measurements it informs about the direction of positive or negative processes. PregnaScan uses these parameters to monitor the health of the moms during pregnancy.

The pulse wave provides a constant, real-time image about the operating of our heart and vegetative nervous system, and about the condition of our vascular system. By the regular monitoring and analyzing of this pulse wave we get a chance to trace these changes of these systems from day to day. The parameters that we can gain throughout the analysis of the pulse wave can be divided into two categories. The first category is the one of the morphological parameters which describe the shape of the wave, and they carry important information about the condition of the cardiovascular system. Significant differences can be observed between the pulse waves of healthy moms and of those who suffer from high blood pressure or preeclampsia, however, numerous other illnesses can show typical images as well. The other category consists of the heart rate variability (HRV) parameters, which carry important information about the condition of the vegetative nervous system and of the condition of the heart. In the case of young and fit people HRV is quite high, and it can be considered as a sign of health, while in case of older, unfit, diabetic people this value is lower. During the development of gestational diabetes the narrowing of the HRV values is typical.

You don’t need to assume the worst thing at first. The human body functions properly within wide borders. When you stop after a hard training your heart beats faster than normally, you breathe more frequently, etc. Our system is constantly reacting to the effects of the outside world. On a stressful day, maybe after a night when you couldn’t sleep well it’s normal to have worse values. The question is, whether these values outside the normal range are constantly present or not. Our doctors are considering all of these aspects when analyzing your measurements.

Due to the comparability of the results, it is worth taking the measurements at the same time of day. Find a comfortable position in which you can stay still for two minutes. Put the PregnaScan pulse oximeter on your right index finger, turn it on, and after starting to run the program on your phone you should be staying as still as possible during the two-minute measurement. After taking it off your finger the pulse oximeter will automatically turn off, so you don’t have to do anything else with it. You can watch a short video about performing the measurement as told by Dr. Sándor Kulin on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/4-iJQgiWTXc

There is an option to write a comment after each measurement. If something out of the ordinary happened during the measurement, please, let us know by writing a few sentences in the adequate section of the app (e.g. talking, coughing, sneezing, having an incoming call, etc. during the measurement). Please also write a comment if you caught a cold, or you have any other disease at the time of the measurement.

The pulse oximeter sold by us is special, you cannot buy it in any store. Other pulse oximeters that you have bought somewhere else which might look identical do not have the same features that are needed to analyze the pulse wave. Pulse oximeters got from other sources are not suitable for performing these measurements mechanically either, also, since these haven’t been registered in our system they cannot connect with the service.

The PregnaScan pulse oximeter has the required certification of medical instruments (EC certificate, EN ISO 13485:2012 + AC:2012).

The operation of the PreganScan operator complies with the applicable GDPR rules, thereby ensuring that your data can not be misappropriated. You can access our Privacy Policy at the bottom of the page or at the following link: https://premier.pregnascan.eu/adatkezelesi-tajekoztato/

The app was developed for mobile phones, so it can be used on smartphones and tablets. It cannot be used on computers or laptops, however, we suggest that you view the results via a browser, on a screen as big as possible.

Web: Internet Explorer up from 11, including all versions of Microsoft Edge, newest version of Firefox, newest version of Chrome. Mobile app: iOS 11.0+ (the newest one is 12.1), Android 5.0+ (the newest one is 9.0)

PregnaScan provides information to the doctor, but it’s not its task to give therapeutic advice. The physician working with PregnaScan will be able to give you further information about the prevention and the possible therapy for the conditions mentioned in the question.

Feel free to contact us on one of our contacts given on the website.