Newborns that have been moved into the intensive care unit can still be watched by their mothers.
A hospital in the United States is going to begin using Google Glass to make it possible for new moms to remain in contact with their newborns when the babies have been transferred to an intensive care unit (ICU).
This has been designed as a wearable technology experiment that is occurring within the Boston hospital.
The pilot is being conducted in Boston’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital, according to a report from one of the top Google Glass enthusiast websites, which is called Glass Almanac. The idea for this experiment using the wearable technology was first raised by Stephanie Shine, a nurse at the hospital whose own baby had to stay in the ICU for a total of 101 days. It is common for babies to be sent to ICU for certain amounts of time when either the mother or the baby (or both) is in need of immediate care. However, throughout that time, the mother and baby are primarily separated.
The Google Glass experiment allows participating mothers to view streaming images of their babies.
To do this, participants that visit the ICU can use the wearable technology and the images that they see will be streamed live to tablets that are given to the mothers. Therefore, the mothers will be able to view the video of their babies when the participating nurses visit their babies.
Certainly, watching video over a tablet computer is not the same as actually seeing and holding the baby in person, but it is far superior to the separation that is currently occurring. This also gives the mother the opportunity to be able to hear the nurses as they discuss the baby, while it also provides her with the chance to ask questions. It gives the mother the virtual experience of being in the room.
The purpose of the experiment is to discover whether or not using Google Glass can help to ease the stress that is felt by a mother when she is required to be separated from her new baby.
