Nappies are big business. Just consider that every second, more than 20,000 disposable nappies are used around the world. In the UK alone, a child goes through as many as 6,500 nappies in the first two years – that adds up to three billion nappies thrown away every day.
In the US, 467 nappies are used every second in a market which enjoys a 95.6 per cent penetration rate. That means 16 billion disposable nappies are used every year in the US.
Given that an average nappy weighs 45 grams, that means that nappy changes are generating tonnes of waste. But it’s important waste, according to husband and wife team Jennie Rubinshteyn and Yaroslav Faybishenko.
It all started when the couple’s one-year-old daughter started crying in the back of the car on a drive back home to New York. As they hurried home to change their daughter’s nappy, they suddenly realised that their daughter wasn’t just sitting on a dirty nappy – she was sitting on a nappy full of data.
The smart nappy uses strips in its absorbent area that change colour according to the urine’s components, including water content, protein and bacteria
This incident inspired them to start developing a smart nappy in collaboration with the University of California. By acting as an early warning health system, the smart nappy helps parents detect if their baby is developing urinary problems.
The smart nappy uses strips in its absorbent area that change colour according to the urine’s components, including water content, protein and bacteria. The colours generate a QR code. A mobile app then takes a photo of the code to analyse whether the colours indicate medical issues such as urinary tract infections, which affect about eight per cent of babies, or even type 1 diabetes.
The dedicated mobile app also stores data on a daily basis – data can be sent to the child’s paediatrician for analysis and diagnosis of possible dehydration or kidney dysfunction.
While the smart nappy, which will be available on the market by March next year, has been hailed by some as a clever idea, others are not so sure and think that this technology might lead to an increase in false positives.
Moreover, do we need technology to diagnose problems which parents have been able to spot for generations?