Thoracoabdominal motion in newborns: Reliability between two interactive computing environments

Background Quantifying the chest wall is useful in documenting thoracoabdominal synchrony during the neonatal period. Subjective measures are often used rather than gold‐standard methods due to their practicality in clinical practice. The aim of the present study is to compare the reliability between a newly proposed method (video analysis in MATLAB) and image analysis using AutoCad tools, both applied to assess thoracoabdominal motion in newborns (NBs). Materials and Methods This is an observational cross‐sectional study of full‐term NBs. A digital camera was used to film thoracoabdominal motion for 2 minutes in the supine position, with movements measured by the two aforementioned methodologies. Results A total of 139 images were used, showing agreement between AutoCAD and MATLAB (BIAS = −1.68; CI = −6.59:3.22, Bland‐Altman plot). Conclusion The programs were interchangeable and the routine developed in MATLAB was simpler and faster, allowing dynamic analysis and suggesting its clinical utility in quantifying respiratory motion in NBs.