Bringing up baby— safely!

Philips has announced a new range of mother-and-child healthcare products and innovations

Wellness begins in the womb. Evolving global awareness of health hazards has triggered medical thinking that care for a baby must begin even before it is born and it becomes critical in the first hours after birth. Rapidly deteriorating air quality poses additional hazards in a child’s early years.

At its annual showcase last week, doctors and engineers of the Philips Innovation Centres (PICs) in Bengaluru and Pune joined to unveil a complete ecosystem of solutions to ensure the health of a child (and the mother). Every product was developed in India and many are to be manufactured in the country.

One of those is the Fetal Heart Rate Monitor, a handy battery-driven system with a built-in loudspeaker that enables a health worker to listen to the heart beat of the fetus and detect any abnormality. The device is part of the arsenal developed for Auxilliary Nurse-Midwives or “Asha” workers in India, to do Mobile Obstetrical Monitoring (MOM), especially in rural areas. To help them collect and transmit the data on the mother-to-be’s well being, without any paperwork, the Asha workers use an app which works on basic Android phones.

The first two hours after birth are the most critical for a child, especially one that is born prematurely. PIC scientists have created the Efficia range of infant warmers and incubators for babies born 26 to 30 weeks ahead of term.

To prevent jaundice after birth, it is necessary to monitor what is known as bilirubin. But pricking a new born infant can be traumatic, so they have created an LED device called BiliChek that can be attached externally to the forehead and a BiliTx, an LED embedded blanket in which the baby can be swaddled. India loses over 3 lakh babies every year in the hours after birth and these tools aim to bring that number down.

Pneumonia has loomed as an increasing hazard. Philips has developed a respiration monitor that can be strapped to the child’s chest to monitor breathing and set off an alarm in case of abnormality. The Made-in-India device has been a great success in Africa since last October. An updated version will be released here.

The poor air quality in Indian metros exceeds WHO-prescribed level for particulate matter (PM) dust, soot and smoke. PM 2.5 or particles smaller than 2.5 microns (a human hair is 100 microns thick, or 40 times larger) are particularly dangerous since they go straight into the lungs. And being indoors is not guarantee for safety.

Last week, Philips launched the Series 3000 indoor air purifier — the newest in a range, that will soon be manufactured in India. It is by no means the only such solution in the market, but it is arguably the only one part of a continuum of tools crafted in the country that help children stay safe in their most vulnerable years.