BYU students invent device, app to combat SIDS


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PROVO — A group of BYU students have created a baby monitor they think can greatly help lower the number of children who die from sudden infant death syndrome.

Kurt Workman came up the owlet baby monitor idea in part because of personal experience. His wife nearly died as a baby due to SIDS.

"Luckily her mom was able to catch that," Workman said. "She found her while she was sleeping. She was turning blue."

There has also been tragedy in his own extended family. One of his cousins passed away from SIDS.

Jacob Colvin got on board being a young father himself.

The device works using a wireless version of a pulse oximeter that can be found in every hospital patient's index finger. It's embedded in a baby bootie that you slip on the child's foot.

If the baby stops breathing or heart rate drops, the monitor sends an alert to your cell phone and sets off an alarm at a booster station in the bedroom. They hope to have their prototype refined in a few months so they can move on to FDA for testing.

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