Most parents know that SIDS stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. No one knows quite why it happens, but it is a fact that some parents lose their young to it every year. And as anyone who has been through that experience will tell you, it is horrendous.
Part of the problem is that it is sudden and unexplained. Things can change literally within a matter of minutes. Many parents from all different walks of life have said that they have put their baby down to sleep with no trouble. And then maybe half an hour (or even less) after that, they go in to see how they are, only to discover that the worst has happened.
But thankfully a new idea for a different kind of baby monitor might help ensure that the death rate from SIDS starts to go down. Apparently this new monitor may not actually hit the market until next year, but when it does it could make a huge difference to many families.
So what does this new baby monitor design do that the existing ones don’t do?
Let’s take a look. If you think about a traditional baby monitor, you will know that it alerts you if the baby makes a noise, starts crying in their sleep or wakes up. You can then go in and see what the problem is.
But the problem with SIDS is that the baby doesn’t make any noise. You could be sitting downstairs thinking that they are sound asleep, without realising what is going on.
That’s where the new design comes in. Apparently the idea is that it not only alerts you to sound, it also alerts you if they stop breathing. The monitor checks whether their chest wall is moving, and if it isn’t you are alerted straightaway – when there is still time to do something about it.
This advent of a new baby monitor could save thousands of lives. We won’t know just how effective it could be until it hits the market and starts finding its way into lots of homes. But there is no doubt that it could make the difference between life and death for lots of people.
So why has this technology not been used like this before? It could be that people have just never made the connection between the technology and what it could do for young babies. The technology is currently used to take a closer look at speeding cars. Have you ever seen a police officer with a radar gun? That is exactly the same technology that is going to be used in these new baby monitors.
And it looks set to make just as big a difference in the homes of those with young children as it has on the roads. Perhaps soon we can call SIDS a thing of the past, and perhaps this new monitor will go a long way towards making that happen. Here’s hoping.