While ultrasound services are normal practice in many countries, software being
tested in Uganda will allow a scan without the need for specialists, providing
an incentive for pregnant women to visit health services early on
Mothers-to-be have become used to the first glimpse of their baby via the fuzzy
black and white ultrasound scan, an image that can be shown to friends and
family. But it remains a luxury in many parts of the world. Now AI is being used
to develop technology to bring the much-anticipated pregnancy milestone to women
who are most in need of the scan’s medical checkup on a baby’s health.
A pilot project in Uganda is using AI software to power ultrasound imaging to
not only scan unborn babies but also to encourage women to attend health
services at an earlier stage in their pregnancies, helping to reduce stillbirths
and complications.
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Tag - Family
Most UK children have their own phone by the age of 11. But what if we didn’t
give them one? A group of parents wants their kids to enjoy a phone-free
childhood – and their numbers are growing
Last year, Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough, longtime friends who have
eight- and nine-year-old daughters, began having drawn-out conversations about
smartphones. Rumours were swirling that children in their daughters’ classes
were asking for their own and both Greenwell and Fernyhough were apprehensive
about the knock-on effect. If their daughters’ friends owned smartphones,
wouldn’t their daughters eventually demand them, too? And what might happen
then? Talking to the parents of children who already owned smartphones only
helped to increase their concern. “They told us about kids disappearing into
their screens,” Greenwell said recently. “They don’t want to hang out with
family any more. They don’t want to go outside.” A local teacher told Greenwell
he was able to speak with his daughter only when the wifi was turned off. “And
these are the lighter problems,” she said.
Neither Greenwell nor Fernyhough wanted to buy smartphones for their children
until they turned 16 (preferably they wouldn’t own them until much later). But
they could feel pressure mounting. In the UK, 91% of 11-year-olds have a
smartphone – it became common remarkably quickly for children to be given a
phone when they began secondary school – and 20% of children own them by the
time they are four. (The average age for a UK child to receive their first
smartphone is around nine.) With grim acceptance, secondary school parents told
Greenwell, “It’s the worst, it’s so, so bad, but there’s no choice” – they
couldn’t find a way to prevent their children from having something all of their
friends already owned. Both Greenwell and Fernyhough felt trapped; for their
daughters, secondary school loomed on the horizon. “We thought, ‘What can we do
about it?’” Greenwell told me. “Shall we not get one? But what if everyone else
gets one and our children are the only ones without?”
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