Sudden infant death syndrome can be avoided with RFID

Filed in archive Implementation on April 23, 2007

Around 2,250 babies in US each year succumb to sudden infant death syndrome and you would never want your baby to be a victim of this. Parents of new born babies are always worried about the health of their child in the hospital nursery and on one such occasion when Hung Cao, a graduate assistant at the University of Texas was in the same position and then he thought about a technological solution for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS.

He along with his colleagues has developed a device which keeps a watch on carbon dioxide being exhaled by a child. With it round the clock watch can be maintained on the child and in case a child stops breathing an alert is sent via RFID within seconds. Here a number of sensors are attached to both sides of the crib which captures carbon dioxide exhaled by a child irrespective of the position in which the child is. An active RFID tag has been attached to the bottom of the crib and an interrogator captures RFID tag data every five seconds. In case no exhalation is detected an alert is sounded. The hospital administration will also be able to access the health record of the child when an alert is sent. Tests are underway and it would be very much possible to bring down deaths caused as a result of sudden infant death syndrome.