Listen to your baby's heartbeat and track your pregnancy
A new smartphone app allows mothers to listen to the heartbeat of their unborn child and keep track of their baby's progress in the womb.
The Bellabeat Connected System includes a fetal heart-rate monitor and lets expectant mothers tune in to their baby's heartbeat and record the sounds.It also tracks important data about the progress of the baby, including heartbeats per minute, the number of times the baby kicks and the weight of the growing foetus.The app also has the capabilities to track the mood of the soon-to-be mother by recording her feelings throughout pregnancy.If the app detects a pattern emerging, such as symptoms pointing to the early signs of depression, the user is even encouraged to speak to a medical professional.
Bellabeat co-founder Urska Srsen, said: 'Listening to your unborn baby's heartbeat was the original feature and all the other features were added around this.'There are tons of pregnancy websites and smartphone apps on the market pushing information to consumers, but women don't have the time to interpret all this information in terms of their lifestyle.'By analysing important data coming from our devices, we can personalise all the other content.'The mood tracker feature is meant to help pregnant women recognise early symptoms of depression.'Users will be able to track changes in their moods and feelings throughout pregnancy by recording notes within the app.'Additionally, once a month, users will be asked to answer two questions about their feelings and moods overall. If a pattern suggesting early signs of depression emerges, the app encourages users to seek help from their healthcare providers.'
Ms Srsen developed Bellabeat with co-founder and mathematician Sandro Mur after the two met while Ms Mur was working with her mother Dr. Tanja Premru -Srsen.Dr. Tanja Premru-Srsen is a renowned specialist of obstetrics and gynaecology with special field of interest in maternal-fetal medicine.
Bellabeat is now being approached by health professionals after hearing about the app from their patients, and the company is looking to launch a subscription-based service for maternity clinics and practitioners in the US.Ms Srsen said: 'The Bellabeat System launched with the vision to make pregnancy tracking interactive and social.
'The ultimate importance of the Bellabeat Connected System lies in its aim to bring quantified self tools to pregnancy and start introducing future parents to using digital tools for pregnancy tracking through an easy to understand experience.'
The app incorporates a social platform known as BellaBeat Global, where pregnant women can interact amongst each other, exchange experiences and share information to create an organised and social pregnancy diary.
Ms Srsen added: 'We will be adding new tracking devices that will work with the app to enable mums-to-be to track blood pressure, weight gain and blood sugar for the first phase.'We aim to have a complete solution to remotely track pregnancies that will highly reduce healthcare costs and improve overall pregnancy experience.'
The Bellabeat App is free to download on iOS and a beta version is available on the Android store with a full version expected in the summer.~ From www.dailymail.co.uk