AI tells parents about their baby's cry

Babies cry for many reasons and a so-called cry language recognition algorithm developed in the US could help distinguish between everyday baby gripes – such as needing to be changed or being tired and grouchy – and an underlying illness.

As well as parents, the method promises to be useful to doctors who may use it to discern cries among sick children.

The research was published in the May issue of IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS), a joint publication of the IEEE and the Chinese Association of Automation.

Experienced health care workers and seasoned parents can often distinguish a baby's many needs based on the crying sounds it makes. While each baby's cry is unique, they share some common features when they result from the same reasons.

Identifying the hidden patterns in the cry signal has been a major challenge, and artificial intelligence applications have now been shown to be an appropriate solution within this context.