BabyBeatz wins Rep. Byron Donalds’ 2024 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 19th District

When asked what inspired the creation of BabyBeatz, the student said, “According to the World Health Organization, nearly two million stillbirths occur every year. Furthermore, nearly 98% of them are concentrated in low and middle-income countries. Fetal heart monitoring can be utilized for early detection of a distressed baby, thus enabling for early intervention. In fact, over 40% of stillbirths occur during labor, which means they can be avoided with improved quality of care and routine monitoring. Many of the current top devices cost hundreds of dollars and are challenging to deploy to communities with limited resources. In Ethiopia, the Pinard horn is used to calculate fetal heart rate. Not only are current electronic fetal monitors expensive, but they are unsuitable for communities with unreliable power and limited access to replacement parts. However, the Pinard horn provides insufficient data and requires manual calculation, leaving room for human error—a critical factor in life-or-death situations for babies and pregnant mothers. As per the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, fetal heart rate may help detect changes in the normal heart rate pattern during labor, which can then help them receive adequate care or know when emergency care may be needed. Therefore, it is important to develop a low-cost, informative and sustainable fetal heart monitoring tool that is easy to use.

I had the opportunity to visit Sri Lanka this past summer. Due to various socio-economic issues, there were frequent power-cuts. This caused hospitals to rely on gas, which had undergone inflation of over 200%. The hardware and software of BabyBeatz helps clinics and pregnant mothers effectively monitor the fetal heart rate without having to rely on electricity. This would offer a sense of peace to the tremendous amount of stress and anxiety they may already be feeling. Alongside the device, I developed a computer hardware and mobile phone app to store data from each pregnancy. BabyBeatz is easy and accessible: through partnerships with global nonprofit organizations like UNICEF and Lion‚’s club, I will distribute BabyBeatz to low-income countries. I will teach midwives how to utilize BabyBeatz. BabyBeatz records the heart rate from the mother and informs them on whether they need to take action. By finding complications earlier in pregnancy, it makes it easier to treat and monitor. ”