What? Did I write that? I just recognize that false alarms are bad for everyone involved, so I guess the lower-tech version of breathing alarms have advantages compared to the criticized expensive high-tech versions. I never tested a high-tech version myself due to the cost: I don't belong the the monied part of the population. But I have extensively tested two different low-tech versions and can confirm that the evil things people (and governments) say about breathing alarms don't apply to them: They absolutely never gave false alarms. This, I think, implies they almost lack disadvantages and for that reason I don't think it is right to discourage people from using them.
>The advanced devices which promise to show the child's heart rate and oxygen saturation rate of the blood are cumbersome to use and often give false alarms. For several reasons, no one wants a monitor that gives false alarms.
>At any moment, when it tells me my child is alive, it might really tell me about my child's death-struggle.
From that, it seemed like you were saying it's more important to avoid false positives than false negatives.
I think it would be great with a super high tech baby monitor if it just worked as intended and wasn't too expensive (and didn't require a smart phone). Just the amazing amount of data that can be harvested would make it worth doing it for science!
My eldest had colic. The valve between his stomach and his esophagus didn't close properly, so his meals tended reflux into his throat. He rarely threw up completely--the food didn't get that far. But his esophagus was burnt raw by stomach acid and every time he burped (or hiccupped) he wailed.
The stomach closes more completely when babies are on their stomachs than on their backs. Mine simply couldn't sleep on his back. Within ten minutes of falling asleep, he would reflux and begin screaming. Every. Time. Even on his stomach he was touchy. He ended up on anti-heartburn medication, I had to hold him upright in my arms for his first half hour of sleep so that any burps could escape with a minimum of accompanying stomach contents, and then I put him down on his tummy.
Have you looked into the SIDS-pacifier study? There's a major flaw in the way that one's presented. People proclaim it (including the nurses at the hospital after I had my second baby) as "babies with pacifiers die of SIDS less than babies without." But the study actually found that SIDS was more common in babies who NORMALLY HAD pacifiers, but had been put down that evening without them. Which is a whoooole different kettle of fish. The study speculated that the pacifiers caused changes in the shape of the baby's airways (complete with MRIs of said babies for evidence) and that the airways were dependent on the presence of the pacifiers to keep functioning properly.
The recommendation that all babies should be given pacifiers based on this study is... somewhat horrifying.
Anyway, I still remember that nurse trying to get me to give my second newborn a pacifier because of said study. I replied that I had *actually read the study* and that was *not* what the study found.
Pacifiers aside, I've noticed a definite trend where whatever it takes to be a "good parent" involves either personal suffering or money. For example, breast feeding. Ok, maybe breast is best most of the time... but it's also undeniable that moms with enough money to stay at home for an extended time are going to breastfeed for longer. (In retrospect, my eldest probably would have benefitted from bottle-feeding due to his extreme feeding problems, but I was trying so very hard to do everything "right" for him.)
No, I never saw that pacifier study, but I am skeptical in general of the way they interpret causation and correlation in SIDS studies. Governments recommend breastfeeding to lower the risk of SIDS, for example, although no one knows whether bottlefeeding in any way causes SIDS. On the one hand, governments can't recommend breathing alarms since it could make parents worried. On the other hand they recommend a number of costly procedures which they mostly don't know are effective. Doesn't that worry parents too?
I have thought a lot about that the-harder-you-work-the-better-it-gets type of parenting advice. As a counterweight to it, I think it would be great if those of us who have more children than average could write a book summarizing our experiences. I didn't learn to take care of babies until my fourth baby. If other people are as difficult to teach as me, that means that very few people actually know how to handle babies. Their parents also don't know, since they also mostly only had two or three children. A book summarizing experiences of taking care of four or more babies could be a rationalist project: Replace the prejudices about baby care with research and experience.
I think governments do a lot of thinking along the lines of, "We want people to do X. Y is good, but if people do Y, they might do less X. Therefore, we don't want people to do Y."
So in this case, the government wants people to put babies on their back for sleeping. A breathing monitor might help prevent infant deaths, but they're afraid that if people use it, they'll start putting babies on their tummies, and we can't have that. So they say no to the breathing monitors.
The connection with bottle feeding is obviously confounded. Higher class people, fewer health problems before feeding even begins for both mom and baby, blah blah.
I agree with you about the four-babies thing. I also feel like I didn't really "get it" until baby four (and I'm *still* learning and there are still things I'm not fully competent at). I think this is a kind of knowledge that society has mostly lost--my grandparents had only 2/3 kids, my parents had me, my husband's family is very similar. So no one still alive in our families has any experience of raising more than 3 kids.
I have a short document I've written on some of my baby care ideas that I send to new moms. We should collaborate on a book; I have some thoughts on toddlers now.
We co-slept with every single one of our children. Mrs. Apple Pie suspects that co-sleeping is only dangerous because some mothers are insentiate, which she isn't. I can verify there's an alternative danger: baby gets up in the middle of the night, and then collapses on your face. This is a very, very painful way to be reassured that your little one is still breathing. Much better: Offer him a slice of crabapple pie. If he shows no interest, call the hospital right away.
Anders and I recently had a discussion whether crabapple pie exists for real or if it is some kind of joke. I claimed I have read about it in a couple of other sources as well, so my position is that it is a real-world phenomenon.
You'd rather not know that your baby is about to die than get a false alarm? Why?
What? Did I write that? I just recognize that false alarms are bad for everyone involved, so I guess the lower-tech version of breathing alarms have advantages compared to the criticized expensive high-tech versions. I never tested a high-tech version myself due to the cost: I don't belong the the monied part of the population. But I have extensively tested two different low-tech versions and can confirm that the evil things people (and governments) say about breathing alarms don't apply to them: They absolutely never gave false alarms. This, I think, implies they almost lack disadvantages and for that reason I don't think it is right to discourage people from using them.
I was responding mainly to these sentences:
>The advanced devices which promise to show the child's heart rate and oxygen saturation rate of the blood are cumbersome to use and often give false alarms. For several reasons, no one wants a monitor that gives false alarms.
>At any moment, when it tells me my child is alive, it might really tell me about my child's death-struggle.
From that, it seemed like you were saying it's more important to avoid false positives than false negatives.
Just being [intellectually spontaneous](https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/i-write-like-an-ape-please-leave) :)
> Just being [intellectually spontaneous](https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/i-write-like-an-ape-please-leave) :)
Ha ha, yes you're right! Plus points on that one!
I think it would be great with a super high tech baby monitor if it just worked as intended and wasn't too expensive (and didn't require a smart phone). Just the amazing amount of data that can be harvested would make it worth doing it for science!
My eldest had colic. The valve between his stomach and his esophagus didn't close properly, so his meals tended reflux into his throat. He rarely threw up completely--the food didn't get that far. But his esophagus was burnt raw by stomach acid and every time he burped (or hiccupped) he wailed.
The stomach closes more completely when babies are on their stomachs than on their backs. Mine simply couldn't sleep on his back. Within ten minutes of falling asleep, he would reflux and begin screaming. Every. Time. Even on his stomach he was touchy. He ended up on anti-heartburn medication, I had to hold him upright in my arms for his first half hour of sleep so that any burps could escape with a minimum of accompanying stomach contents, and then I put him down on his tummy.
Have you looked into the SIDS-pacifier study? There's a major flaw in the way that one's presented. People proclaim it (including the nurses at the hospital after I had my second baby) as "babies with pacifiers die of SIDS less than babies without." But the study actually found that SIDS was more common in babies who NORMALLY HAD pacifiers, but had been put down that evening without them. Which is a whoooole different kettle of fish. The study speculated that the pacifiers caused changes in the shape of the baby's airways (complete with MRIs of said babies for evidence) and that the airways were dependent on the presence of the pacifiers to keep functioning properly.
The recommendation that all babies should be given pacifiers based on this study is... somewhat horrifying.
Anyway, I still remember that nurse trying to get me to give my second newborn a pacifier because of said study. I replied that I had *actually read the study* and that was *not* what the study found.
Pacifiers aside, I've noticed a definite trend where whatever it takes to be a "good parent" involves either personal suffering or money. For example, breast feeding. Ok, maybe breast is best most of the time... but it's also undeniable that moms with enough money to stay at home for an extended time are going to breastfeed for longer. (In retrospect, my eldest probably would have benefitted from bottle-feeding due to his extreme feeding problems, but I was trying so very hard to do everything "right" for him.)
No, I never saw that pacifier study, but I am skeptical in general of the way they interpret causation and correlation in SIDS studies. Governments recommend breastfeeding to lower the risk of SIDS, for example, although no one knows whether bottlefeeding in any way causes SIDS. On the one hand, governments can't recommend breathing alarms since it could make parents worried. On the other hand they recommend a number of costly procedures which they mostly don't know are effective. Doesn't that worry parents too?
I have thought a lot about that the-harder-you-work-the-better-it-gets type of parenting advice. As a counterweight to it, I think it would be great if those of us who have more children than average could write a book summarizing our experiences. I didn't learn to take care of babies until my fourth baby. If other people are as difficult to teach as me, that means that very few people actually know how to handle babies. Their parents also don't know, since they also mostly only had two or three children. A book summarizing experiences of taking care of four or more babies could be a rationalist project: Replace the prejudices about baby care with research and experience.
I think governments do a lot of thinking along the lines of, "We want people to do X. Y is good, but if people do Y, they might do less X. Therefore, we don't want people to do Y."
So in this case, the government wants people to put babies on their back for sleeping. A breathing monitor might help prevent infant deaths, but they're afraid that if people use it, they'll start putting babies on their tummies, and we can't have that. So they say no to the breathing monitors.
The connection with bottle feeding is obviously confounded. Higher class people, fewer health problems before feeding even begins for both mom and baby, blah blah.
I agree with you about the four-babies thing. I also feel like I didn't really "get it" until baby four (and I'm *still* learning and there are still things I'm not fully competent at). I think this is a kind of knowledge that society has mostly lost--my grandparents had only 2/3 kids, my parents had me, my husband's family is very similar. So no one still alive in our families has any experience of raising more than 3 kids.
I have a short document I've written on some of my baby care ideas that I send to new moms. We should collaborate on a book; I have some thoughts on toddlers now.
Yes, we should!
Could you please send me your short document to begin with? woodfromeden@gmail.com
Yes, I'll send it over. I should probably add something about toddlers but I'll just send it as is.
We co-slept with every single one of our children. Mrs. Apple Pie suspects that co-sleeping is only dangerous because some mothers are insentiate, which she isn't. I can verify there's an alternative danger: baby gets up in the middle of the night, and then collapses on your face. This is a very, very painful way to be reassured that your little one is still breathing. Much better: Offer him a slice of crabapple pie. If he shows no interest, call the hospital right away.
Anders and I recently had a discussion whether crabapple pie exists for real or if it is some kind of joke. I claimed I have read about it in a couple of other sources as well, so my position is that it is a real-world phenomenon.