For families
How many times have we heard this to describe a baby´s life? However, 75% of parents of children up to 6 years old have some kind of sleep-related complaint about their children…
“This goes with age, hang on!”
But should we let it go out of our minds?
Did you ever notice that when a baby starts to cry we all stress about it? 😱
For new parents, this is probably one of the most demanding times of their lives. Can you imagine what it would be to go without proper sleep for a couple of years? 💤
Families are experiencing parenthood with a lot of negative feelings 😔 like anxiety on solving common issues, fear about difficulties to come or the insecurity about not knowing what is normal and what to expect.
75% of parents with children younger than 6y.o. have complaints about their kids’ sleep.
The vast majority of parents spent years without having a full night of sleep. 😴
That´s why Aurora is here!
Aurora is a digital expert for parents to help families finding natural sleep without having to see it rising on the horizon 🌅 every single night…
She’s here to bring back to families the knowledge 📚📑 that was once passed down from mother to mother, families to families 👨👩👧👦 … Breastfeeding, diapers, sleep and every single phase of tiny humans development will be within reach of your hand.
Meet Aurora 👩 ! She’s here to help families 👋!
Currently, we live in an increasingly ageing society. Firstly, due to the increase in average life expectancy, the result of improved health care and living conditions, but also the result of reduced birth rates and the consequent lack of generational renewal. The decrease in the local population, as well as its ageing, is notable from year to year.
Aurora focuses precisely on the birth rate.
We know, based on the UNFPA “Report on the evolution of the world population of 2018”, that, for example, in Portugal, on average women and couples want to have about 2.3 children and in reality have 1.2. When asked about their parenting wishes, we (the Aurora team) found out that the change of will (change in parenting wishes) occurs after the birth of the first child and that it is related to the fact that couples feel they do not have support that they consider appropriate (available whenever necessary, easily accessible,…) which conditions them in the decision to return to being parents and, ultimately, impacts on the decrease in the birth rate, which has a parallel in all the most developed countries.
In the same investigation, it was asked what the main problems and difficulties were and in what areas they were felt (in their recent parenting experience), with sleep and breastfeeding standing out. Specifically, 43% of respondents considered that adapting to the baby’s post-birth phase was difficult or very difficult; 41% experienced difficulties related to sleep issues; 36% experience difficulties related to breastfeeding.
It is easy to see that families are challenged in terms of their quality of life when they decide to have children. Can you imagine what it will be like to spend years without being able to sleep properly?
For new parents, this is probably one of the most challenging times in their lives. For them, it will be the first time that they will have to bathe, feed or fall asleep alone. The collective knowledge that was once passed from mother to mother is now out of reach, whether due to the distance to the extended family or the current pace of life. And the confidence and knowledge that came from the experience of having dealt with younger brothers, cousins and nephews before our own son was born, was lost.
The issue is also related to decreases in productivity and difficulties in the family/work balance.
The families are experiencing parenting with various negative feelings such as anxiety to resolve common situations, fear about difficulties and the insecurity of not knowing what is normal and expected.
75% of parents with children aged up to 6 years have complaints regarding the sleep of children.
One hour of missing sleep already affects productivity, concentration and substantially increases errors by default or oversight.
Many parents go for several years without getting a full night’s sleep. That is, they are subject to sleep deprivation resulting directly from this new routine “imposed” by the new baby’s routine. According to a questionnaire carried out in England, it is estimated that, in the baby’s first year of life, parents sleep less than the corresponding 44 days.
Aurora is today a reference in support of families and as social entrepreneurship example. Currently focused on Sleep and Breastfeeding, but with a much broader vision of the future, Aurora asks for a reference to support parents throughout their journey.
The idea behind Aurora arises from the need to bring to today’s families the information that was once passed from mother to mother, but that with the reality of the day-to-day lives of families in developed countries has been lost. Families are currently experiencing parenting with anxiety, fears and constraints due, essentially, to the lack of awareness of the normal development of babies and children, as well as the lack of support to solve the difficulties of everyday life.
Aurora, then, puts all available scientific knowledge at the service of families in order to calm their anxieties as well as help to solve difficulties felt, giving constant and an always-available support (24/7).
“It takes a village to raise a child!”
ancient African saying
In mid-2017, the project that would give rise to Aurora leaves as a Finalist in the CANVAS Contest – PROJECTS THAT MARK by the European Commission – Entrepreneurship Scholarship 2017. The business and sustainability plan thus begins to become aligned.
In 2018, Aurora begins to take the first steps, in its automated interaction with parents and families, helping them, initially, only with issues in the area of breastfeeding. Soon after, we made available some playful tests, for pregnant women and pregnant women, to immediately start, then, the tests of their sleep monitoring program, for babies and children, from 0 to 6 years old.
About 200 families participated in the various testing phases.
In the 4th test phase, 86% of parents, who took the program with Aurora, declared that their children’s sleep improved, either by decreasing the number of wakes or by decreasing the time to fall asleep and the consequent increase in the total number of hours of sleep and rest.
We were in May 2018 and thus entered the Portuguese market that same summer. We were in the news in several reference national media such as the Observer (“O Observador”).
At this time, Aurora ends up winning the HACK FOR GOOD bootcamp 2018 from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
We are recognized as an innovative social project in the area of support for children and young people and this again gives us some visibility in the media, this time a reference national radio station, TSF.
https://www.tsf.pt/sociedade/dois-mitos-relacionados-com-o-sono-das-criancas-9972226.html
https://www.tsf.pt/sociedade/um-peluche-uma-fralda-e-toda-a-seguranca-9897452.html
It is still in 2018 that we reached the first 1000 users (families helped by Aurora) and AuroraTechAI, Aurora’s formal and official home, is opened. During the 2018 Websummit, where we were on display for 3 days at the Hack for Good stand (as part of the bootcamp prize), the English version of Aurora is launched and with that, we open the doors to the world.
It is also around the same time that we became incubated at the Casa do Impacto of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (also as part of the Hack for Good award), the first incubator of social projects in the country.
With the recognition of Gulbenkian, Aurora is also invited, at the end of 2018, to formalize itself as an Innovative Social Entrepreneurship Initiative (ISEI) and to submit an application for funds from PORTUGAL SOCIAL INNOVATION.
Thus was born PelaFamília – family promotion association, with the support and as an incubator of IEBA – Center for Business and Social Initiatives.
The approval of the support of Portugal Inovação Social is effected in the summer of 2019 in the Training component.
At the end of 2019, we tripled our users and we now have a service offer specifically aimed at companies in the context of reconciling life / family / work.
Also in 2019, Aurora is also the winner of the EUROACE CETEIS award, Transfrontier Support Centers for Innovative Entrepreneurs, that gave us access to WebSummit 2019 and the incubation at the Pedro Nunes Institute, Incubator for technology-based projects, in Coimbra, Portugal.
At 2020 Aurora is now available to around 700,000 employees from 60 national and international companies in partnership with Inspiring Benefits and with approximately 4000 families who were helped by Aurora.
And we still don’t know what the future holds, but we know that Aurora will be here, with us, always ready to help.
Cláudia Matos Morgado
Tlm: +351 916654433
Mail: claudia.morgado@auroratechai.com
Skype: claudia.m.morgado
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/claudiamorgado