To monitor and sense stress situation of a human, such as a baby, in order to inform parents or other caretakers of such situations, a pulse oximeter (28) and an electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor (26) are appropriately positioned., e.g. as shown, mounted on a sock (10), and an EDA measurement signal at an EDA sensing rate is received from the sensor (26) at a functionally associated processor (22) to identify any EDA indication of stress. If such an EDA indication of stress is identified the pulse oximeter (28) is activated to determine a measure of at least one of pulse and blood oxygenation of the human. Then, said processor (22) receives at least one pulse oximeter signal related to said determined measure of at least one of pulse and blood oxygenation and processes said signal and if it thereby identifies a pulse oximeter indication of stress, said processor provides an alarm signal, which may be visual or audible and/or may be transmitted wirelessly to a remote monitoring unit. The stress may be due to respiratory distress. Also claimed is a method / apparatus for providing indication of a reason for stress in a human comprising processing an electrodermal activity sensor measurement to identify an electrodermal activity level category and providing an alarm indicating medical stress, non-medical stress or no stress depending on the electrodermal activity level.
