NFANT Labs and Silicon Labs have come up with a smart baby bottle outfitted with sensors that provide real-time bio-feedback on infant's neonatal sucking skills based on the strength and coordination of the tongue. According to NFANT Labs, up to 70% of premature babies, and even 10% of full-term births can have problems with feeding. Usually, infants in NICUs (Newborn Intensive Care Units) are tube-fed and are the only bottle or breastfed after doctors feel they are ready for the transition. With this smart feed solution, NFANT Labs has expanded its IoT medical solutions beyond the NICU and has got FDA approval within 90 days.
The NFANT Feeding Solution is one of the fastest medical devices ever deployed to the field. The smart feeding solution equipped with Silicon Labs' Bluetooth low-energy Bluegiga Legacy modules, the BLE113. The device has a pre-certified technology stack, a Bluetooth low-energy module, and an inexpensive BoM. According to the NFANT labs, any standard bottle can be turned into a smart device using the NFANT Coupling and NFANT Sensor, enabling seamless integration into the existing NICU workflow.
The Feeding Solution comes with a smart baby bottle outfitted with Silicon Labs' BLE113 module equipped with a coupling device and reusable sensor aimed at measuring the strength of the infant's tongue. The BLE113 module within the smart bottle collects the data and sends it to a monitoring device via BLE (Bluetooth low energy) for the doctors to get real-time analytics. The BLE technology is power efficient and can run on a coin cell battery for more than a year which is a particular strength in busy NICUs.
This smart feeding solution can also connect to a host of mobile devices from smartphones to tablets enabling doctors and nurses to monitor the premature babies' feeding abilities. Besides, this BLE solution is reliable and robust with AFH, transmissions and 24-bit CRCs. Moreover, the device provides man-in-the-middle (MITM) protection and complies with advanced encryption standard (AES)-128. The feeding solution is supported by all major platforms (iOS, Android 4.3, Linux, Windows 8, and OSX).
