WAAA! (wearable, anytime, anywhere, APGAR), a finalist in UNICEF’s Wearables for Good challenge, is designed to help newborns all over the world, especially the 40 million who are born without medical people attending them. APGAR (Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration) is the first test a newborn gets. WAAA! is a silicon band with a sensor module that measures a newborn’s pulse and respiration.
Wareable interviewed Dr. David Swann, reader in Design at the University of Huddersfield and part of the team that designed WAAA!
“We’re trying to be a bit intelligent in where we apply the technology so we can do low cost training to fill the gaps, [said Dr. Swann] That’s why our wearable only looks at pulse and respiratory because it can de-skill that clinical process.”
Sounds so simple, yet it could make an incredible difference to the 40 million babies born a year without any medical personnel attending. It could also help reduce the almost 3 million newborn deaths every year.