Denis Opudo
When one mentions Ubenwa technology we remember days before the technological advancement when there was high number of deaths of children who were under five days old. There were more than one million neonatal deaths experienced every year. Birth asphyxia is the highest cause of all this according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Birth asphyxia is directly connected to the 1.1 million long-term neurological impairment, disability, and intrapartum stillbirths.
According to Dr Victoria Feyikemi a physician at Babcock University Teaching Hospital in Ogun state, southwest Nigeria said that the conditions could because of the immaturity of baby’s respiratory system. Revealing the condition is somehow challenging in Nigeria and most parts of Africa where most people tend to concentrate much on the cultural rites immediately after the birth of the child. The only long-term solution to the whole problem is by having qualified medical expertise that will be required to accurately establish diagnosis using blood gas analysis, administer oxygen support and to treat the cause of the problem.
Ubenwa is which caregivers are currently on Android app helps and mothers to detect asphyxia much earlier without necessarily involve the doctors. Ubenwa means child’s cry. The app uses the child’s cry as an input, studies the amplitude and frequency patterns of the cry and give out an immediate diagnosis of the problem according to Charles Onu, Ubenwa’s founder and principal innovator.
Despite the fact that the condition is detectable, most of the hospitals in the country lack the required equipment are due to the high cost, unrealistic routine application for each baby and poor electricity services. After testing the startup and finding that it was successful, the startup decided to go a notch higher and deploy its technology to a mobile app, and that makes it easier to diagnose birth asphyxia. The app works on speech identification basis according to Udeogu Innocent Ubenwa’s co-founder and engineering lead.
The Ubenwa team is currently operating clinical validation exercise in Nigeria at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital and in Canada at the McGill University Health Centre. The exercise will offer one on one interaction with the babies and study how the app operates given the various environmental challenges that might come up according to Onu. The company is working on the hybrid model. Currently, the Ubenwa’s team is planning to make their services free to individuals but at a small cost for organizations like clinics, governments and hospitals.
