A new smartphone app aims to provide a cheaper alternative to
ultrasound in Africa by bringing an old technique into the 21st
century. "We couldn't hear anything,” says Aaron Tushabe,
recounting a trip with two friends to the maternity ward of the
main hospital in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The student had
been handed an ear-trumpet-like device called a Pinard horn,
used to listen for the vital signs of a baby in a mother’s
abdomen. Despite straining to hear against the murmur of the
ward, Tushabe couldn’t hear any signs. Luckily, the problem was
not with the baby, but the combination of what he calls a
“rather primitive device”, and his lack of training. In fact,
the Pinard horn, named after the French doctor who invented it
back in the 19th Century, can be very effective in the right
hands. It can determine the age, position and heart rate of the
foetus, along with an indication of its overall health. But to
do this consistently can take many years of practice. Meanwhile,
in developing countries, “a woma