Baby Talk offers help to parents

Published on Tuesday 24 November 2009 21:50

SCOTTISH researchers are developing a new computer system to help the parents of premature babies.

The system, known as Baby Talk, is being pioneered by researchers at Aberdeen University to provide parents with regular and updates of their child's condition.

The Baby Talk system will also be capable of sending automatic updates online to concerned relatives and friends. .

Saad Mahamood, a member of the research team from Aberdeen University's Department of Computing, said: "When a baby is in a neonatal intensive care or a special care baby unit it can be hard for parents to take in all of the complicated medical information and the treatment that their baby is being given.

"Our new computer system will produce secure automatic online updates about the baby so that parents can get news day and night, even when they are away from the ward.

"When a baby is in a neonatal ward their medical details and information on interaction with nurses or family members is recorded in a database by the hospital. Baby Talk takes the information in this database and creates a simple text version of what has happened to the baby within the last 24 hours."

Researchers are looking for volunteer parents from the North-east of Scotland, Tayside and Fife that have had a baby in neonatal care in the past ten years, to give their views on the text reports and try out the online system.