Identifying infections in infants early and taking timely precautions, are some of the many challenges new parents face. Helping parents achieve this without much effort is a New York based company that has designed a "digital diaper" which can monitor a baby's health and inform parents if the child needs to be taken to a doctor or not.
The so-called "Smart Diapers," from Pixie Scientific is capable of testing babies' urine and detecting early signs of urinary tract infection, dehydration or kidney problems and give an accurate and up-to-date feedback.
The Smart Diapers operate with the help of a QR code and a bunch of urine test strips. Every time the baby urinates, the test strip collects a sample from the absorbent area of the diaper and records its feedback by changing colors around the QR code. So a simple scan with an iPhone app of the front portion of the wet diaper before changing it will help parents get an idea of their little one's health status, website Gizmodo reported.
"Our goal is not to create another quantified self gadget, but to create a product that is unobtrusive in your daily life and only speaks up when there is reason to see a pediatrician or a specialist," a statement appeared on the official website of the company said.
Foreseeing parents' doubts about the contents in their "Smart Diaper", the company also explained that the product is completely safe for babies and will be created with latex-free material.
"Smart Diapers contain reagents that interact with leukocytes (cells made by the immune system in response to foreign bodies), nitrites (stuff made by bacteria that causes urinary tract infections), etc." a company statement read. "These reagents and the dyes formed as a result of reaction with urine content, are not toxic and never come in direct contact with your child's skin - they are positioned on the front, over the absorbent core and the inner layer of the diaper, which does not let liquid back in."
To collect more concrete evidence on the effectiveness of the diaper, the company has already signed an agreement with University of California San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital and will be tracking health of children admitted to the hospital's intensive care using their Smart Diapers.
As the company is under the process of getting FDA approval for its product and is currently on a crowd-funding campaign on indiegogo, the diapers are yet to reach the local markets.
Urinary tract infection (UTIs) is a bacterial infection that affects the bladder, leading to the infection of the blood or kidneys. The infection is often caused by the intestinal bacteria E. coli. Girls are at higher risks of developing the infection than boys as their urethra is shorter and closer to the anus. The repetition of the UTI infections often affects the function of the kidneys. According to an estimate from the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases, about 3 percent of American children develop urinary tract infections every year.
