Ask any parent, and they’ll tell you that one of — if not the — biggest challenges facing them is trying to decipher a newborn’s anguished cries in the middle of the night. Is the baby hungry? Does she have an upset stomach, or is she in the throes of colic? Maybe the poor girl needs to poop?
The only thing worse than feeling helpless in the face of such unreadable emotions is trying everything and still having no idea what’s wrong or how to ease their baby’s discomfort. Such a dilemma, mixed with a lack of quality sleep, can easily slide into feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and depression.
To help parents find peace of mind and a more restful night’s sleep, the startup Cappella has gathered a team of MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford engineers to help parents answer those inscrutable midnight questions. The team developed an app that detects baby sounds and then translates them so parents know what’s wrong. And the app runs on technology that’s already available in most U.S. homes.