I know it's hard to believe, but I've forgotten a lot of things about the first few weeks of my child's life. Other than remembering not getting any sleep at all, I remember very few details–except for worrying excessively about whether or not she was breathing okay while sleeping. I know for a fact that I wasn't the only mom who worried about this and freaked out unnecessarily in more than one occasion thanks to information overload regarding Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). That's why I would've given anything to have something like the Owlet Baby Monitor.
Invented by a team of students at Brigham Young University in Utah, the monitor is a sock-like device that straps around a baby's foot and tracks heart rate and blood-oxygen levels. If the baby stops breathing or there's a change in the heart rate, the monitor notifies parents by sending an alert to their smartphone. How genius is that?
Introduced at the third annual Student Innovator of the Year competition, the prototype of the Owlet Baby Monitor won first place and crowd favorite award. And it's easy to see why. Worrying about whether your baby's breathing okay or not is probably one of those concerns all new parents share.
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According to Jacob Colvin, one of the inventors on the team and a father of two, "Our hope is that we can give parents time to react and see that something's wrong before it's too late." As any parent knows, time is of the essence when it comes to preventing SIDS and so I could see how this new baby monitor could significantly reduce the number of cases.
One of the best parts of the Owlet Baby Monitor is that it's completely wireless and it doesn't use invasive technology. And since we rely so much on our smartphones these days, I love the idea that both devices work together.
Embedded content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7vsOo9Erpw&feature=player_embedded
Image via BYU News
