Experts warn against smartphone-integrated baby monitors
They may do more harm than good.
By Livia Gamble
February 07 2017
Experts are warning parents against buying phone apps claiming to track an otherwise healthy baby’s breathe and pulse.
An article published in The Daily Telegraph claims the applications, which are worn on baby’s clothes and linked to a parent’s phone, increase parents anxiety and do not help to reduce sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Associate Professor Leanne Raven, Red Nose’s chief executive, told the publication: "We know how to reduce and prevent sudden and unexpected infant deaths and it’s certainly not through monitoring, there isn’t any evidence to support that."
"Being a new parent is a really stressful time so this sort of intrusion cannot be very helpful and it increases anxiety and would impact on the parents getting sleep."
Recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) backed up these claims.
Paediatrician and safety expert Christopher P. Bonafide, MD, MSCE, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said: "These devices are marketed aggressively to parents of healthy babies, promising peace of mind about their child's cardiorespiratory health.
"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."
