3 ms·

It's not 'unfair'. (are you implying I was unduly harsh on the gent?) Let's take sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Because of SIDS, it is now recommended in

It's not 'unfair'. (are you implying I was unduly harsh on the gent?) Let's take sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Because of SIDS, it is now recommended in the videos I watched yesterday, that infants be put down on their backs with no pillows in the parents' bedroom but not in their bed. This has no bearing on prenatal care or wealth, but has an effect, which could probably be enhanced by a smart baby monitor.

tedunangst 11y ago
It's not possible to lay an infant on its back if it's wearing a dumb onesie?
- tptacek 11y ago
  14-16 years ago, it wasn't even possible to get out of a hospital without having this explained to you in detail. I can only imagine what it's like now. "Smart onesies" are silly.
  - CydeWeys 11y ago
    Biometric monitoring for at-risk individuals is patently not silly. As a percentage, more babies are at-risk than young adults.
    - jschwartzi 11y ago
      The question we should be asking is whether a smart onesie improves outcomes compared to existing best practices. If there's not a statistically significant difference and you divert money from things that would help, then pushing these onesies isn't benign, it's actively harmful.
- martin-adams 11y ago
  The point as I see it being got at here is that changes in the approach to raising a child has resulted in fewer SIDS over the past 30 years [1]. Introducing new technology, or techniques, regardless of how absurd it appears, needs the data to identify whether it really does have an improvement in child safety. Simply saying my generation (born in the 80's) turned out just fine so why change is actually incorrect. The rate of deaths was higher in the 80's compared to now and changes were made in advice that has reduced death rates. Technology could be used to reduce this further, but we don't know until we have the data. Do I think it's likely that an IoT onesie will make a difference? Not really, purely because the cost and adoption rate would probably make it impossible to detect its impact as safety concious parents who would buy it would probably have mitigated most risks anyway. The chance of getting a significant number of would-be SIDS outcomes to be using such a device would, in my opinion, be extremely small. [1] http://www.babywill.org/sids-information/what-is-sids/sids-statistics http://www.babywill.org/sids-information/what-is-sids/sids-s...
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Again: the dominant factor in reducing infant mortality in the US has been prenatal care. Infant mortality in the sense described upthread is not about SIDS. The latter half of your comment is a bit hand-wavy. "Purely" because of adoption numbers? What does a "smart onesie" actually have to do with SIDS? Companies have been selling ever-more-complicated baby monitors to parents for years using fear of SIDS, but SIDS is not a problem of monitoring.
dalke 11y ago
So you disagree with articles like http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/02/mimo_and_other_smart_baby_monitors_don_t_protect_from_sids_so_what_are_they.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/02/mimo_and_o... "Selling Fear: Smart monitors cannot protect babies from SIDS, so what are they for?" Or the Policy Statement at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/1030.full.html http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/1030.ful... which says: > Do not use home cardiorespiratory monitors as a strategy to reduce the risk of SIDS—Although cardiorespiratory monitors can be used at home to detect apnea, bradycardia, and, when pulse oximetry is used, decreases in oxyhemoglobin saturation, there is no evidence that use of such devices decreases the incidence of SIDS.84,–,87 They might be of value for selected infants but should not be used routinely. There is also no evidence that routine in-hospital cardiorespiratory monitoring before discharge from the hospital can identify newborn infants at risk of SIDS. When you say "probably be enhanced", was that speaking only from optimism in technology, or did it have some other basis?

tedunangst 11y ago

It's not possible to lay an infant on its back if it's wearing a dumb onesie?

tptacek 11y ago
14-16 years ago, it wasn't even possible to get out of a hospital without having this explained to you in detail. I can only imagine what it's like now. "Smart onesies" are silly.
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  Biometric monitoring for at-risk individuals is patently not silly. As a percentage, more babies are at-risk than young adults.
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    The question we should be asking is whether a smart onesie improves outcomes compared to existing best practices. If there's not a statistically significant difference and you divert money from things that would help, then pushing these onesies isn't benign, it's actively harmful.
martin-adams 11y ago
The point as I see it being got at here is that changes in the approach to raising a child has resulted in fewer SIDS over the past 30 years [1]. Introducing new technology, or techniques, regardless of how absurd it appears, needs the data to identify whether it really does have an improvement in child safety. Simply saying my generation (born in the 80's) turned out just fine so why change is actually incorrect. The rate of deaths was higher in the 80's compared to now and changes were made in advice that has reduced death rates. Technology could be used to reduce this further, but we don't know until we have the data. Do I think it's likely that an IoT onesie will make a difference? Not really, purely because the cost and adoption rate would probably make it impossible to detect its impact as safety concious parents who would buy it would probably have mitigated most risks anyway. The chance of getting a significant number of would-be SIDS outcomes to be using such a device would, in my opinion, be extremely small. [1] http://www.babywill.org/sids-information/what-is-sids/sids-statistics http://www.babywill.org/sids-information/what-is-sids/sids-s...
- tptacek 11y ago
  Again: the dominant factor in reducing infant mortality in the US has been prenatal care. Infant mortality in the sense described upthread is not about SIDS. The latter half of your comment is a bit hand-wavy. "Purely" because of adoption numbers? What does a "smart onesie" actually have to do with SIDS? Companies have been selling ever-more-complicated baby monitors to parents for years using fear of SIDS, but SIDS is not a problem of monitoring.

dalke 11y ago

So you disagree with articles like http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/02/mimo_and_other_smart_baby_monitors_don_t_protect_from_sids_so_what_are_they.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2014/02/mimo_and_o... "Selling Fear: Smart monitors cannot protect babies from SIDS, so what are they for?" Or the Policy Statement at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/1030.full.html http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/1030.ful... which says: > Do not use home cardiorespiratory monitors as a strategy to reduce the risk of SIDS—Although cardiorespiratory monitors can be used at home to detect apnea, bradycardia, and, when pulse oximetry is used, decreases in oxyhemoglobin saturation, there is no evidence that use of such devices decreases the incidence of SIDS.84,–,87 They might be of value for selected infants but should not be used routinely. There is also no evidence that routine in-hospital cardiorespiratory monitoring before discharge from the hospital can identify newborn infants at risk of SIDS. When you say "probably be enhanced", was that speaking only from optimism in technology, or did it have some other basis?