Blind woman sees baby for the first time through a specialized piece of eyewear. The legally blind woman Kathy Beitz, 29, is from Guelph, Ont. However, she isn't only seeing her newborn son for the first time, it's also the first time that she has seen a baby.
Beitz had been diagnosed with Stargardt disease when she was still 11. The disease is a genetic condition causing macular degeneration, making her lose her sight in grade school.
The legally blind woman sees baby now despite having developed a blind spot in the centre of her field of vision together with some peripheral vision.
"It takes up pretty much, if I were looking at a person, their head and shoulders, that area, I don't see any of that," said Beitz.
Since she knew about a device produced by the firm eSight, the blind woman sees baby, a big change in her life. One of the moments highlighted in the eSight video is when the mom first saw her son Aksel, who is now a few weeks old. Facial features reportedly appear much larger and closer for her.
"I remember his little mouth and his gums and his itsy bitsy tongue when he would cry. I would have had to imagine what he looked like and I'm used to doing that, but it's a little bit heartbreaking having to do that for your own baby," she said.
Not only did the blind woman see her baby, she was also able to get a glimpse of her husband.
"The moment I got the glasses, I was very ready to put them on," Beitz said. "I got to see that he had my husband's feet and toes, and I got to see that he had my lips."
"My husband and I got to have the family experience of looking at our brand new baby, and bonding with him and falling in love with him."
The eSight device, which allowed the woman to see her baby, has a video camera sitting over the bridge of the wearer's nose. The images from the camera are then enhanced and projected onto high definition screens in front of the wearer's eyes.
"Their eyes actually perceive more when they look at the screen than they can with their natural eyesight," according to Taylor West, an eSight spokesman.
eSight is a firm with offices in Ottawa and Toronto.
The device can be customized to suit a variety of eye impairments, such as helping the woman see her baby for the first time. However, the device will not be able to help those with no vision.
"I see better in lower lights," said Beitz. "And so I use a higher contrast with white on black."
A user of the device can reportedly adjust contrast, brightness and shadow depending on his or her preferences.
At home, the glasses are big help as well for the woman who saw her baby for the first time.
"I never want to bend his little toes too much by putting on his socks," Beitz said.
When it comes to reading the fine print on packaging, "I would basically be have to be going in completely blind and not knowing the product I'm using on my child," said Beitz.
However, with the glasses, she can now read labels and even bedtime stories.
The device was launched in 2013 and is now selling for $15,000. Because of the price of the device, the company has created a fundraising department which helps people purchase the eyewear, according to CBC News.
The fundraising efforts reportedly include helping people with crowdfunding efforts, grant applications and a new campaign centred on Beitz's story, dubbed#MakeBlindnessHistory.
ESight is also starting to try and get the product covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
Developed by an Ottawa-based company, the device has already been on the market for about a year, reports WFSB.
"I think it's a pretty life changing technology," said West. "What we do is capture an image and a video and present it in real time with certain enhancements for people with low vision. This makes the eye perceive more than they would otherwise be able to."
The woman who saw her baby for the first time still has to pay for her device.
Yvonne Felix, her older sister who also works for eSight, is helping her with this. In fact, she introduced Beitz to the device.
"I've been working towards fundraising for the eyewear so that she [wouldn't have to] go without seeing her first born's face, and miss out on that experience," said Felix, a fundraising co-ordinator for eSight.
Woman sees baby for the first time, and with the device, she no longer has to struggle with her illness.
"Being a person with a disability [who has] two children of her own, she knew the struggles of being a legally blind or blind parent. So she was very adamant [about getting] the glasses for me and work with me to use them, so when I did have him, I got to experience everything that she didn't," said Beitz.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
