When newborns in the developing world run into complications at birth, they often end up in overcrowded intensive care units with dozens of high-needs infants all under the watch of a single nurse or doctor.

Too often, caregivers can’t keep up with monitoring all these babies, leaving many of them vulnerable to going into distress without any aid.

That's a problem that Sona Shah is determined to solve. The Chicago-based biomedical engineer recently co-founded a company called Neopenda, which has developed a wearable vital signs monitor for infants.

The idea for the device came to Shah and co-founder Teresa Cauvel when they were working on their Masters as students of Columbia University. They spent time in Ugandan fitbit

health care centres, looking at what the different conditions and needs were in the hospital NICUs, or neonatal intensive care units.

They noticed insufficient staff and limited equipment led to inadequate newborn care in the clinics.

“What we found is that, oftentimes, there are just too many critically ill newborns and not nearly enough persons to help care for them. So a lot of newborns that were in distress ended up dying from preventable causes,” Shah told CTV News Channel from Chicago.

They realized that most of the clinics could not afford traditional vital sign monitors that hospitals in North America use, so they decided to develop a tool to help.

They created a tiny battery-charged sensor that tucks into a baby’s hat.

“We can measure respiratory rate, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and temperature -- all four of which are really important to critically ill newborns,” Shah explained.

The device wirelessly transmits data from the sensor to a central monitor, such as a tablet, phone or computer, that would alert nurses if one of the newborns they are caring for goes into distress.

The Bluetooth-enabled device requires no Internet access and allows clinic staff to track 24 babies at once.

As the pair’s development of the device came together, they began crowdfunding in April 2015 and raised US$41,000.

They will now use most of the funds to test their prototype in a pilot study in Uganda. Working with the Uganda Pediatric Association, the team will test the feasibility of the technology in Ugandan NICUs, training staff how to use them and trouble-fixing any issues that come up.

“We’re so excited to head out to Uganda in just a couple of week to start our clinical trials there,” said Shah.