What if you could attach a small baby monitor directly to your baby ... and it could check your baby's breathing and heart rate, and the room's temperature and lighting ... and you could track all that information through an app? Someone is making that! A startup called Sproutling has created a wearable baby monitor that could be in stores, soon. The monitor is a Bluetooth-enabled device you would wrap around your baby's ankle. It would take the baby monitor to a whole new level. And it would probably make us crazy.
Holy helicopter-parent enabler. This thing ... I don't know. They say it's about "raising parents' IQ" -- like we were too dumb to handle babies before this device was invented. Like, aw geez! Thank goodness we got the wearable baby monitor, or we'd still be trying to put the baby to sleep in the bathtub while we listen to Black Sabbath at full volume! Did you know this baby monitor goes up to 11?!?
It doesn't, that I know of. But I do have to laugh a little at this device. I remember what it's like to have a brand-new baby when you're a first-time parent. It's freaking terrifying. I can see how parents would get really excited about this device. All those moments you wake up and wonder if your baby is still breathing? All you have to do is check your phone instead of your baby. Think of all the time and energy you'll save!
Think of all the extra obsessing you'll do. I never thought I needed to check my son's heart rate, ever. Maybe I did tip-toe in to find out if he was still breathing (okay, maybe I still do this when he has a cold even though he's in the fourth grade now). But I feel like real life provides a few barriers that help repress our obsessive tendencies. Being able to check your sleeping baby's heart rate from your phone is just going to open up the floodgates of parental hysteria.
Plus, there's that Bluetooth/cancer connection. I mean, science has not proven that these wireless devices cause cancer, but they haven't conclusively proven that they don't, either. Have they? I don't know. It just makes me nervous. Just thinking about it makes me feel like maybe I'm the one who needs her heart rate and breathing monitored.
Would you ever use a wireless, wearable baby monitor?
Image via Iain Watson/Flickr