NeoRoo- An Integrated mHealth Platform for Improving Nursing Care for Premature Babies

Premature birth is highly prevalent with every one in ten births being premature. A common complication in premature birth is hypothermia (the baby cannot regulate its body temperature). Low-middle income settings limit access to neonatal incubators and radiant warmers. Thus, there arises a need to develop low-cost solutions to support premature newborns in their early and vulnerable stages of life. KMC (Kangaroo Mother Care) is a technique widely practiced to provide thermal support to newborns. During KMC, a caregiver maximizes contact with the newborn by laying the newborn, skin-to-skin on their chest. Since KMC is a highly burdening activity, the caregiver might need breaks for personal care making the baby vulnerable to a loss of a thermal source. The patented NeoWarm device is a low-cost solution to this problem. It not only augments the natural KMC session by providing extra heat but also regulates and monitors the temperature of a newborn even when the caregiver-newborn dyad is not engaged in KMC (standalone mode). The NeoRoo app provides a digital interface to the NeoWarm device by monitoring the vitals of the baby over BLE and sending alerts to responsible medical professionals and parents if the baby's vitals are found to be abnormal. It also establishes a mode of communication between the medical professionals and the guardians of the baby so that there are shared goals, coordinated tasks along with exchange of information for better neonatal care.