Smart Baby Trackers

Paediatricians want baby health-trackers regulated and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

16:27 30 January 2017

A group of paediatricians said that smart health-trackers designed to monitor babies while they sleep should be regulated by the US FDA after babies were brought to A&E due to smart-monitor false alarms.

 

Neonatologist Dr Elizabeth Foglia, one of the authors of the opinion piece, said that baby trackers are mostly unnecessary.

 

"For most healthy babies, there is not a role for home monitoring at all,

 

"All the data we have so far suggests monitoring healthy infants at home has not been shown to reduce the risk of Sids [Sudden Infant Death Syndrome].

 

"There are few classes of babies for whom it would be appropriate to go home with a medical monitor - and a physician would prescribe that monitor."

 

Dr Foglia, Dr Christopher Bonafide and Dr David Jamison said that the monitors could do more harm than good. 

 

"By continuously monitoring healthy infants, parents will inevitably experience some alarms for conditions that are not life-threatening, including false-positive alarms... and true-positive alarms for events that are not clinically important," they explained.

 

"Healthy infants have occasional oxygen de-saturations to less than 80% without consequence, and these monitors could increase the risk of over-diagnosis and potential harm if these innocuous events generate alarms."