There are many babies who get to suffer urine infections in the first weeks of life getting to stagnate the weight because of the energy they spend fighting the infection. As its immune system is still immature, it can take many days for the fever to appear, leaving parents and health workers with the only weapon of intuition to suspect urine infection (the baby does not gain weight even though he eats well and is more irritable).
A company, named Pixie Scientific, has wanted to facilitate the task to parents in this regard, designing a smart diaper capable of analyzing the baby's pee, with a QR code that offers information to our mobile phone. The name of the diaper: smart diapers (smart diaper).
At the moment it is just one project, because the company is trying to get financing to be able to take the diaper to market. The operation is as follows: each diaper has a test strip with different reagents that analyze the baby's pee and "inform" the QR code that is visible. This code can be read with a mobile, seeing all the details of the baby's urine and knowing at the moment if he has any problem.
Regarding the price, the company ensures that the device increases the price of diapers by 30%, which is a lot if we decided to make use of these diapers in each change. I say this because it seems to me a great idea, but to use them at specific times, that is, when one suspects that the baby may have an infection (does not gain weight, is more irritable, sleeps worse) or when he is older and has a fever or the pee smells stronger than habitual.
Now they face the challenge of getting FDA approval in the US, for which they plan to carry out some tests in different hospitals, although it is there, precisely, where they seem less useful and I explain myself: in the the moment you enter the hospital the most interesting thing is get a urine sample as clean as possible. That is why the entire area of the urinary meatus is cleaned and around with alcohol in a thorough manner and a bag that is changed often is applied if the boy or girl has not pee, or the baby is probed to obtain the sample directly from the bladder. That urine is taken to be analyzed and cultured and what matters is that it does not become contaminated with external elements, as it would give false results.
A diaper does not seem like a "container" too clean and has a problem, the pee can not take it to the laboratory, so it is a pee that can be useful if the infection is already diagnosed (if the baby is admitted to the hospital) , but that does not serve either for the diagnosis at the hospital level, nor for the control that is done a few days after the antibiotic treatment, when a new urine sample of the baby must be cultured.
For home, however, I see it great. You save parents from having to put bags (with Guim, who suffered a urine infection at two months for which he was admitted a week, I have put tens every time we suspected a little) and waiting for him to pee with the ass in the air (or the broken diaper) and trying to keep the baby in a position that does not spoil the invention and gives them the necessary clue to know if they should go to the doctor or not.
