The Times of India          04.09.2013

E-system to track newborns in hospitals

PUNE: Cases of newborn babies being stolen or swapped are likely to become a thing of the past in hospitals run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The civic body will introduce electronic tags for both mother and child in the hospital premises and also take their fingerprints and footprints to prevent swapping of babies.

To start with, the PMC will introduce its "bio baby protect" system at the Kamla Nehru Hospital on a pilot basis in a month's time. It will be introduced in other hospitals in the future, PMC's health department chief S T Pardeshi told TOI. The PMC standing committee on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the project.

The computerised system will permanently store details of every newborn and its parents, such as names, contact details and addresses, Pardeshi said. "The mother's fingerprints and the baby's footprints will also be stored in the system. The biometric details will help identify the mother and child in case the latter gets swapped. In an infanticide case or where a baby has been found abandoned, the system will be able to track down the mother if the child has been born in a corporation-run hospital," he said.

Pardeshi said an electronic tag will be tied to the ankle of every newborn and on the wrist of the mother to prevent thefts of babies. "These tags will be interlinked between mother and child. Should the child be any more than 50 feet away from the mother, the tag will send an alert by way of a beep or a siren sound to the tracking system. The staff operating the tracking system will rush to the ward," he said.

At the Kamla Nehru hospital, as many as 130 tags will be used for mothers and babies and 20 for the staff, including ward boys and nurses. Pardeshi said the project is expected to cost Rs 75 lakh for this hospital alone. Nearly 200 births are registered at the hospital every month. As many as 50,000 births are registered across the city in different hospitals each year.

According to PMC's records, there have been three cases of babies having been stolen from the Sassoon hospital since 2003.

How the system will work

Electronic tags for both mother and newborn baby.

Tags will be linked with tracking system.

Beep or siren sound if distance between mother-child tags is more than 50ft.

Mother's fingerprints, baby's footprints will be stored in system to preventing swapping of child.