New smart phone applications

Two new smart phone applications have been developed by the Life’s Little Treasures Foundation to help parents of premature and sick babies

Premature Baby Journal

The Premature Baby Journal is a global app that is easy to use, no matter where you are in the world and a great tool for parents with a Little Treasure. The app is designed to record information in imperial or metric measure, so that you can track your baby’s progress through hospital and beyond. It is packed full of features making it easy to track your baby’s feeds, weight gain, expressing times as well as keeping a journal for all the milestones your baby achieves.

The Premature Baby Journal is available to purchase from the Apple i-store

NICU Words

The NICU Words application has been developed to provide simple, clear explanations to families of the machinery and medical terms that are commonplace in NICU or Special Care units. It also includes a concise list of the roles of the medical personnel they will encounter.

“Having a child that is born either prematurely or unwell exposes you very quickly to the overwhelming world of NICU, where it can often seem like medical staff are speaking a foreign language,” said Parool Shah, founding director of Life’s Little Treasures Foundation and mum to premature baby Luke. These applications let parents gain back a little bit of control in the world they have now found themselves in, tracking their babies progress and decoding the jargon, helping them follow their baby’s progress and giving them the confidence to ask any medical questions they might have.”

The NICU Words app is available for FREE download. Click here to download app.

Every year in Australia, approximately 15% of infants are admitted to neonatal intensive and special care units each year – which equates to around 120 babies a day.

“Information, education and resources are vital to empower families and to help them to achieve the best outcomes for their babies,” said Dr Gehan Roberts, a Developmental-Behavioural Paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital and a NHMRC Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Applications like the Premature Baby Journal & NICU Words is a much needed and welcome resource for a family’s journey”.

For further information on the apps click here.