Wearable baby monitors that can send real time updates to smartphones are unregulated devices that may be causing stress and unnecessary hospital visits, according to an article published in JAMA:
Specifically, the authors cite the Baby Vida, MonBaby, Owlet, Snuza Pico, and Sprouting wearables, which cost anywhere from $150 to $300 each. The idea is that if you're in the next room over while your baby is napping, you can simply look at your phone for reassurance that your baby is still breathing without you staring at them.
The devices are not regulated by the FDA, researchers point out, and in order to stay that way (and presumably, also avoid problems with the Federal Trade Commission) they don't make specific claims about their ability to prevent sudden infant death or distress. Owlet, for example, says, "We can't promise to prevent SIDS right now, it's an unknown issue but... we believe notifying parents when something's wrong maybe can help." That's similar to Baby Vida, which states in its marketing, "What sound does your baby make if he or she stops breathing?"
New parents, often sleep-deprived and navigating a haze of contradictory advice from well-intentioned sources, are particularly susceptible to doing everything they can "just in case." "These devices are marketed aggressively to parents of healthy babies, promising peace of mind about their child's cardiorespiratory health," pediatrician Dr. Christopher P. Bonafide, with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said. "But there is no evidence that these consumer infant physiological monitors are life-saving or even accurate, and these products may cause unnecessary fear, uncertainty and self-doubt in parents."
For starters, the authors note that nobody actually knows if the apps even work properly. Wearable sensor tech may not be entirely accurate for adults, let alone kids. One blood pressure app, the authors write, inaccurately told nearly 80% of participants with hypertension that their blood pressure was in the normal range.
Also at CBS.
The Emerging Market of Smartphone-Integrated Infant Physiologic Monitors (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2016.19137) (DX)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 27 2017, @12:32AM
>But there will be a moment when you WILL walk into the baby's room and poke the kid just to hear it cry.. because it was TOO QUIET.
Don't need to make baby cry to see the motion of breathing.
But that nap/night was indeed a lot longer than normal, and nobody's gonna prevent you from checking...
If they catch you, you'll tell them that watching your (healthy) baby sleep is the most relaxing thing in the world. It's true, so you can get away with it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 27 2017, @01:23AM
Mmmm - not so sure about that. Baby can indeed appear to be entirely motionless. Hell, adults can do the same. Just a few weeks ago, the wife wasn't feeling well, and slept most of the day away. I checked on her a couple times during the day. One of those times, I could see no indication that she was breathing, so I poked her. When she stirred, I turned the light off, and left her alone.
I remember poking and prodding infants all those years ago. It wasn't necessary to make them cry, but some kind of response to a stimulation seemed necessary to assure me that they were still alive.