Katie Manchester

The Baby Monitor: A Complicated History of Anxiety and Advertising

Apart from the continued worsening of the Great Depression, one of the most shocking moments of the 1930s was the Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the crime occurred on March 1, 1932, where at 9pm the 20-month-old son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was snatched from the second-floor nursery of the family’s home. Records indicate that Charles Jr.'s nurse discovered he was missing the following hour, kickstarting a two-year investigation and extensive media coverage.(1)

"The Snatch Racket" by Henry F, Pringle, featured in Hearst's International combined with Cosmopolitan (September 1933). Charles Lindbergh Jr. is featured alongside a photograph and illustration of female adult kidnapping victims. This five-page spread is an example of sensationalized, anxiety-inducing stories detailing the threat of kidnapping.

The Lindbergh kidnapping continues to draw intrigue, and is the subject of both professional and amateur true crime commentary in the 2020s. The crime was horrific, and Lindbergh’s celebrity status only fueled the public’s thirst for knowledge about the case. Splashy magazine articles warned of the rising threat of kidnappers, advised readers on how to protect their families, and explained the gory details of high-profile cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping — perhaps they are the historical analog to true podcasts like My Favorite Murder. For instance, a September 1933 issue of Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan published an article titled “The Snatch Racket.” Written by Henry F. Pringle, the two-page spread features a photo of the Lindbergh baby alongside an illustration of a woman in bondage surrounded by gangsters.(2) The woman is clad in a skin-tight dress and manages to hold a slinky pose as she is bound to a pole, so the illustrations manage to appeal to the prurient interest while driving readers into an anxious frenzy about kidnapping — “the great menace from which no person is safe.”(3)

Horrified by the incident, Eugene McDonald Jr., president of the Zenith Radio Corporation, debuted the Zenith Radio Nurse in 1938 — the world’s first baby monitor (4). Harnessing the power of the novel radio technology, the two-piece system broadcast noise from the baby’s room through the house. In a time where houses were becoming larger and nurseries were separate from other rooms in the house, technology that could broadcast noise from one end of the house was an incredible innovation. The Radio Nurse worked as a two-piece system; the “Guardian Ear” was the transmitter meant to pick up the baby’s cries and the “Radio Nurse” was the receiver that could be brought into another room(5). A model of the Radio Nurse has been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as Isamu Noguchi’s design, reminiscent of a nurse’s cap, is an early example of manufactured plastic’s use as a sculptural medium(6).

Pictured above: Guardian Ear transmitter (left) and the Radio Nurse receiver (right). Image from the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.

1938 print ad for the Zenith Radio Nurse, featured in the April edition of Good Housekeeping.

In addition to the monitor’s artistic element, the means by which it was presented in its marketing materials was groundbreaking. Though McDonald was renowned for his flashy public relations campaigns for Zenith’s other radio inventions (i.e. product placement in Hollywood movies and furnishing an Antarctic expedition with Zenith radios)(7), the promotional material for the Radio Nurse was a masterclass in copywriting. An advertisement published in Good Housekeeping reads: “If the baby cries—if the invalid wants a glass of water—if there is fire—if an intruder enters—you know it instantly.”(8) Including the threat of intrusion is emblematic of the growing, sensationalized fear of kidnapping, the impetus for the product’s creation. Not only is the copy representative of 1930s advertising’s proclivity for marketing on practicality, but is indicative of a shift in advertising based on a feeling. The Good Housekeeping ad asks the reader, “Can you afford to have your loved ones without this health and safety insurance?”(9) Zenith asserts that the baby monitor is the superior, if not the only, way to keep families safe from dangers, whether internal or external.

The history and subsequent evolution of this product demonstrates that the baby monitor was born out of and continues to be marketed on the basis of parental anxiety.

Scene from Toy Story (1995) in which the Playskool Deluxe Baby Monitor acts as a character in the birthday party investigation.

Moving through the 20th century, the baby products industry continued to explode, and baby monitors continued to evolve. By the 1980s, monitors were still constructed of plastic and relied on the radio technology that Zenith perfected, but continued to innovate. The new technology of 1980s baby monitors is best represented by its most culturally ubiquitous example: the 1988 Playskool Deluxe Baby Monitor. Featured in the opening scene of Toy Story in 1995, this baby monitor is representative of major technological changes in such a product. Most notable is that the Playskool monitor can be battery operated or can be plugged into the wall(10). The updated version abandoned the abstract sculptural quality of the Radio Nurse and instead evoked imagery of an antenna-clad radio set in the transmitter while the receiver took the shape of a walkie-talkie.

1988 TV commercial for the Playskool Deluxe Baby Monitor.

Just as the technology of the baby monitor made small, but not insignificant, changes through the late 20th century, the advertising language used to market these products changed very little. One difference though is its increased emphasis on ease of use. For example, the Playskool Deluxe Baby Monitor commercial highlights the portability of the new baby monitor, demonstrating that the battery-operated technology can be used across the house as well as outside.(11) However, the emotional undertones of baby monitor ads didn't completely disappear, rather they evolved. The mother is happily chopping vegetables in the kitchen and as the baby's cries are transmitted from the nursery, she drops the salad to scoop the baby out of the crib before the pair grins toward the camera.(12) It's classic commercial advertising; identify a universal problem, in this case making sure that your baby is safe while you're in the opposite room, position your product as a means to solve that problem, and balance the features that differentiate your product with some saccharine-sweet pathos.

Advertising language in the late 1980s didn't completely abandon the traditional rhetoric used to sell baby monitors. Take for instance the Gerry Deluxe Baby Monitor, which billed itself as, "One of the best investments a new parent can make."(13), which perpetuates the idea that to become a good parent, you have to spend money on the latest "must-have" products developed by the baby care industry (more on this later). The headline of this ad, "The Baby Monitor. On Call 24 hours a day. So you don't have to be," is particularly stirring.(14) This kind of language personifies the monitor, casting it as a sort of omniscient guardian over the child and a benevolent servant that gives parents a break. This is also reminiscent of Zenith's marketing materials, in which the Radio Nurse was dubbed "The Guardian That Never Sleeps."(15)

Instruction manual for the Zenith Radio Nurse, image from the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.

Print ad for Gerry Deluxe Monitor, on sale in Target stores. Featured in November issue of Parents magazine.

This language is not limited to the headline, the instruction manual details that, "It will go on duty, guarding the health and safety of your loved ones just as soon as you wish it to."(16) This demonstrates that the baby monitor was personified from its perception, and significant linguistic work had to be done to create a gentle perception of the monitor. To avoid being perceived as an intrusive piece of surveillance technology, The baby monitor being described in this manner assuages parents' anxieties about their children's safety as well quelling any concerns about the technology being too intrusive.

The language used to market the baby monitor remained consistent through the twentieth century, as did the threat of kidnapping. A variety of factors continued the cultural mania surrounding abductions but narrowed its focus to children in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Commentators framed the issue as a “national epidemic,” and claimed that over 50,000 children were kidnapped each year, when the actual number was significantly closer to 100.(17) In this decade the 24-hour news cycle began to take root, and high-profile child abduction cases became the fodder for news media and a wedge issue for politicians espousing “family values.”(18) This fear coalesced into a particularly memorable campaign: milk carton kids. Engineered by the National Child Safety Council, the Missing Children Milk Carton Program plastered photos and biographies of missing children onto millions of milk cartons nationwide, with the goal of aiding law enforcement in reuniting them with their families.(19) Claiming ad space on a grocery staple was a particularly effective strategy, as the ubiquity of milk cartons guaranteed that millions of American households would be made aware of the prescient threat of child abduction.

Example of missing children's photos and biographies on milk cartons, part of a nationwide campaign helmed by the National Child Safety Council (NCSC). Photo from NCSC website.

The political frenzy around kidnappings and the ever-present (if manufactured) threat of the unknown adult was a hallmark of the late 1970s and early 1980s news media. However, it was no longer the preeminent reason for new parents to invest in top-of-the-line baby monitors. Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, became the new, unseen threat to the safety of sleeping babies, and was promptly used to market baby monitors. A 1993 Congressional Research Service report defined SIDS as “The sudden and unexpected death of a healthy infant in which the death remains unexplained after the performance of an adequate postmortem investigation including an autopsy, examination of the death scene and review of the case history.”(20) In the 1990s there was no explanation for the cause of SIDS, and the same rings true today.

Digitized article from page 14 of the January 28, 1909 issue of The Boston Daily Globe. This article details the congressional hearings for the establishment of the Children's Bureau, which was created in 1912. Image from ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

This anxiety around parenting, sleep, and the looming threat of SIDS is a distinctly modern issue. In colonial America a baby’s survival was considered to be in the hands of God, and it wasn’t until public health efforts by reformers and the creation of the United States Children’s Bureau in the twentieth century that infant mortality rates would drop significantly.(21) According to the Children’s Bureau, “More than one in ten infants did not survive their first year” in the early 1900s.(22) In this push to increase infant life expectancy, folk wisdom and intuition were replaced by professional advice from medical and psychological experts at the turn of the century.(23) Intervention by government agencies and pediatricians extended a child’s life expectancy, but signaled a shift to an increasingly medicalized framework of child rearing, and baby monitors were a part of this equation.

The language used to describe SIDS in the 1980s was rather violent. One article published in Parents magazine in 1982 was titled “The Fight Against SIDS,” and used language like “the silent killer” to describe the condition.(24) The article also suggested that “up to 10,000 infants in America may succumb to this mysterious phenomenon,” and such a statistic is bound to stoke fear in the magazine’s readers.(25) Another grim fact that the article states is that “the cause or causes of SIDS are not yet known, and there is no cure.”(26) What makes this article unique is its use of language and statistics; the alarming facts and the threat that any baby could die in an unpreventable, unexplainable manner is terrifying to new and soon-to-be parents. It aims to mobilize readers in a crusade against sudden infant death syndrome, armed with baby monitors rather than weapons.

Cover photo that accompanied "The Fight Against SIDS" by Marilyn Goldstein, featured in the May 1982 issue of Parents magazine.

The Nanit "Bestsellers Bundle," which features a wearable breathing monitor, camera, and several camera accessories. Photo from www.nanit.com.

The threat of infants passing away from SIDS has continued to loom over cribs and bassinets, and the baby monitor industry has adapted to cater to this fear. Now, in addition to strollers and bottle sanitizers, one can find a host of smart, wearable baby monitors on baby shower registries. Products like the Owlet Smart Sock and the Nanit Pro Smart Baby Monitor are three players that have popularized the concept of child-worn monitors that can track baby’s heart rate, respiration rate, and even positioning throughout the night. The top-of-the-line product suite for these brands transmit this biometric data via bluetooth to a smartphone and often include a camera as well as a traditional radio monitor. The connected apps provide insight to baby's sleeping patterns, and Owlet's predictive sleep technology can even predict when baby's next sleep window is.(27) The monitors, cameras, and radios can be sold a-la carte or in bundles, but they come at a steep price — the Nanit “Bestsellers Bundle” retails at $479 and the Owlet "Dream Duo 2" at $399.(28)(29)

This new technology has effectively democratized the medical surveillance of babies. In the 1980s, this kind of biometric surveillance was made available to families with children most at risk and in an extremely controlled setting. The Durney family were defined as “monitor-baby parents” in their Parents magazine profile, as their daughter was hooked up to hospital-grade equipment meant to monitor her chronic apnea and alert her parents if she stops breathing.(30) Products like Nanit and Owlet have drawn upon technology that was created to alert parents to when their high-risk children needed to be resuscitated, and have manufactured a baby monitor promised to alleviate average parents’ anxiety about their infant’s sleep patterns.

The Owlet "Dream Duo 2," which features the smart sock monitor, camera, and the integrated smartphone app. Photo from www.owlet.com.

Figure from 2018 study by Bonafide et al. demonstrating the inaccurate oxygenation readings from the Owlet Smart Sock (left) and the Baby Vida Monitor (right). This is drawn in comparison to a medical-grade reference monitor that has been approved by the FDA (solid line).

The language used in Nanit and Owlet’s promotional materials are meant to alleviate the concerns of stressed parents and foster peace of mind about their babies’ safety, and as such have to go through significant hoops to avoid marketing such products as a medical device. A 2008 study of comments about baby monitors on epinions.com mentions a mother who allowed her baby to sleep on their stomach, but she and her husband felt compelled to purchase a baby monitor because they, “were nervous wrecks because of the SIDS risk.”(31) This demonstrates that even in the mid-2000s, parents felt it necessary and possible to prevent SIDs using baby monitors.

However, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “home cardiorespiratory monitors should not be used as a strategy to reduce the risk of SIDS.”(32) To prove their inefficacy, a study was conducted in 2018 comparing two smartphone-integrated home baby monitors to medical-grade equipment; these monitors were found to be startlingly inaccurate, one of which failed to detect low blood oxygenation levels(33). Instead, these companies aim to sell reassurance, but reassurance is not a lucrative business. A minuscule disclaimer at the bottom of a web page is not enough to negate the threat of SIDS, and it is not enough to prevent consumers from treating high-tech home monitors as a medical device.

The threat of SIDS creates a semblance of cognitive dissonance in modern parents. Public health initiatives and medical innovations created in the twentieth and twenty-first century increased American life expectancy significantly. How can it be possible for infants to die in such a sudden, unexplainable manner? This brings about the unfortunate reality that many parents were shamed or even blamed for their loss. In the 1980s-90s, many women’s and parenting magazines ran profiles of families who lost a child to SIDS. A 1996 issue of Redbook points out in one such article that “a diagnosis of sudden infant death syndrome used to go unquestioned, and the community mourned along with the parents. These days grieving parents of SIDS babies find officials and neighbors asking: what did you do wrong?”(34) This is reflective of the shift toward medicalized childrearing: if families are afforded modern medical technology, a baby dying in their sleep is a moral failing at best, and suspicious at worst.

First page of a 1996 Redbook article about parents grieving the loss of their babies to SIDS, and how they feel blame and shame for their child's death. PDF generated by ProQuest

TikTok posted by @bringingupthebaileys on March 2, 2023. In this video she is responding to a comment accusing her of suffocating her baby who died of SIDS.

In the social media age, the equivalent of magazine profiles would be personal TikTok pages. There are many mothers who share their story and grief on the internet to raise awareness of SIDS and safe sleep practices. One such woman hosts the TikTok account @bringingupthebaileys, where she shares her story of coping with losing a child to SIDS, and regularly has to field hate comments.(35) She often faces suspicion regarding her daughter’s death and is accused of having suffocated her child. What is most heartbreaking about these situations is that parents are opening themselves up to share their grief online in hopes that it would raise awareness about the issue or some semblance of healing, only to have the wound continually ripped open by commenters preying on pre-existing anxiety that they are to blame for their child’s sudden and unexpected death.

The baby monitor was created by Zenith in the wake of a cultural panic surrounding kidnapping, and this is reflected in the copy written to promote the Radio Nurse. This threat saw a resurgence in the 1980s with the Milk Carton Kids campaign, though the anxiety driving baby monitor sales and advertising shifted. In conjunction with the medicalization of childbirth and childrearing, sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS became a cultural touchpoint and a common fear among parents of infants. Both are reasonable fears, but were exploited by a burgeoning baby care industry through the carefully selected rhetoric within advertising materials.

Notes

Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Lindbergh Kidnapping,” FBI History, Famous Cases and Criminals, accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/lindbergh-kidnapping
Henry F. Pringle, “The Snatch Racket: First Aid in a Kidnapping Case,” Hearst’s International combined with Cosmopolitan, September, 1933, 35.
Pringle, “Snatch Racket,” 35.
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, “Zenith Radio Nurse, 1938.” https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/33824/
Henry Ford, “Zenith Radio Nurse, 1938.”
Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Radio Nurse.”https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490889
Reginald F. Moody, “Taking Tips from Zenith’s Legendary Eugene McDonald Jr.: Getting Public Relations and Advertising to Say ‘I Do,’” Public Relations Journal 4, no. 4 (2010): 3–4.
“Advertisement: ZENITH RADIO CORPORATION,” Good Housekeeping, April, 1938, 256.
Good Housekeeping, 256.
"1988 Playskool Baby Monitor TV Commercial," YouTube video, 0:30, posted by ewjxn, October 17, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_nmOhRa-rs
Playskool TV Commercial
Ibid
"Advertisement: TARGET," Parents, November, 1989, 276.
"Advertisement: TARGET," Parents, November, 1989, 276.
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, "Instructions for the Zenith Radio Nurse, 1938"
"Instructions for Zenith Radio Nurse, 1938"
Paul M. Renfro, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, online ed., Oxford Academic (2020). https://academic-oup-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/book/33592
Renfro, Stranger Danger (2020).
national child safety council https://www.nationalchildsafetycouncil.org/about/missing-children-efforts/228-missing-children-milk-carton-program
Samuel Merrill, “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): A Fact Sheet,” CRS Report for Congress, March 30, 1993.
Brooke Blower, “Baby Time” (Class lecture for CAS HI303, Boston University, January 31, 2023)
Administration for Children and Families, “The story of the children’s bureau,” 2012. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/Story_of_CB.pdf
Brooke Blower, “Learning to Play” (Class lecture for CAS HI303, Boston University, February 2, 2023)
Marilyn Goldstein & Lenore Gavigan, “The Fight Against SIDS: Where to Go for Help,” Parents, May 1982, 83.
Goldstein & Gavigan, “The Fight Against SIDS,” Parents 83.
“The Fight Against SIDS,” 83.
“Owlet Dream Duo 2,” Owlet, accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.owletcare.com/products/dream-duo-with-cam-2
“Bestsellers Bundle,” Nanit, accessed March 28, 2023. https://www.nanit.com/products/best-sellers-bundle?_pos=1&_fid=b2db3c7f4&_ss=c
"Owlet Dream Duo 2," Owlet, 2023.
“The Fight Against SIDS,” 84-85.
Margaret K. Nelson, “Watching Children: Describing the use of Baby Monitors on Epinions.com” Journal of Family Issues, 29 no. 4 (2008): 523 https://buprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_cdi_proquest_journals_1970624187&context=L&vid=BU&lang=en_US
David King, “Marketing Wearable Home Baby Monitors: Real Peace of Mind?,” BMJ, online ed, vol 349, November 2014, https://www-bmj-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/content/349/bmj.g6639
Christopher P. Bonafide, A. Russell Localio, Daria F. Ferro, et al., "Accuracy of Pulse Oximetry-Based Home Baby Monitors," JAMA, 320 no. 7 (2018) 717-719. https://jamanetwork-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/journals/jama/fullarticle/2697685
Michael D’Antonio, “What were you doing when the baby died?”, Redbook, March 1996 87.
@bringingupthebaileys “Replying to @aj_1021: Go educate yourself and stop arguing with grieving mothers,” TikTok, March 2, 2023 https://www.tiktok.com/@bringingupthebaileys/video/7206065932588829994?lang=en

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About the Author

Katie grew up in New Hampshire and can’t imagine living outside of New England. She received her acceptance to Boston University in the Dunkin’ drive through and she will graduate in May with a degree in media science. She enjoys iced coffee, long walks down Comm Ave, and studying mass media’s impact on history and culture.

Progress Report

I think I have definitely started out on the right foot for this project. At first I thought that I would have trouble finding scholarly research about the baby monitor, but I was pleasantly surprised. I found no shortage of papers from the 2010s discussing baby monitors and how they provide peace of mind from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome rather than actual prevention. A few discuss the marketing strategies of this project, which is very helpful for my argument. I have also found a wealth of primary sources including magazine ads and articles from the 1930s and 1990s, and content from TikTok creators. I think it would be valuable to find some “mommy blogs” from the mid-2000s and more firsthand accounts from the 20th century to cite in my project and create a more holistic timeline of the baby monitor in American families. My research thus far confirms my thought that parental anxiety is not a new phenomenon, and neither is the anxiety-inducing rhetoric in baby monitors’ marketing.

Annotated Bibliography

"Advertisement: TOYS "R" US." Parents, 10, 1994, 8-A

https://ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fmagazines%2Fadvertisement-toys-r-us%2Fdocview%2F1903398934%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D9676.

Advertising language reveals so much about what brands think is most important to consumers. This campaign, featured in Parents magazine, centers around the idea that “safety comes first” for parents and that the baby monitor is a means to protect their children.

"Advertisement: ZENITH RADIO CORPORATION." Good Housekeeping, 04, 1938, 256,

https://ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fma

azine%2Fadvertisement-zenith-radio-corporation%2Fdocview%2F1858686391%2Fse-2%3Fccountid%3D9676.

This source is a 1938 magazine advertisement for the Zenith Radio Nurse, which was the first baby monitor to hit the market. I was surprised to see that the original advertising still had a particular flair for anxiety. One line of copy jumps out in particular: “can you afford to have your loved ones without this health and safety assurance?”

Bailey Family (@bringingupthebaileys). 2023. TikTok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@bringingupthebaileys?lang=en

This account is run by a mother who lost one of her children to SIDS, and she documents her journey parenting and finding joy while still grieving the loss of her two-month-old. This account is the modern equivalent to magazine stories of the 1990s.

Bonafide, Christopher P., Localio A. R., Ferro, Daria F., Orenstein, Evan W., Jamison,

David T., Lavanchy, Chris, Foglia, Elizabeth E. “Accuracy of Pulse Oximetry-Based Home Baby Monitors.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 320(7), 2018, p. 717–719.

Like many other studies I plan to cite, this article found that these wearable baby monitors are not incredibly reliable and may be a contributing factor in parents’ anxiety. For example: “Monitor A detected hypoxemia but performed inconsistently. Monitor B never detected hypoxemia and also displayed falsely low pulse rates. Beyond their accuracy, other concerns about consumer monitor use include the lack of medical indications for monitoring infants at home, the absence of FDA oversight, and the potential for unintended consequences.”

D’Antonio, Michael. “What Were You Doing When the Baby Died?” Redbook, New York.

186(5), March 1996. p . 86–89, 117, 119. ProQuest Women’s Magazine Archive.

This article reveals another layer of anxiety regarding SIDS: that parents will become suspects in a murder case. Written in 1996, this article also mentions the cultural fascination and fear of Munchausen by proxy and highly publicized murders. The magazine spread also includes a crib wrapped in yellow caution tape and is riddled with anxiety-inducing rhetoric. D’Antonio cites apnea monitors in addition to safe sleep practices as the paramount ways to prevent SIDS.

Goldstein, Marilyn and Gavigan, Lenore. 1982. “The Fight Against SIDS: Where to Go for

Help.” Parents, 05, 82–85, 146–147, 86.

This 1982 magazine article starts with an anecdote of a young mother who was concerned for the safety of her daughter. It’s full of subheadings like “The silent killer” and “Causes still unknown,” and illustrates the anxiety surrounding SIDS and monitoring babies.

“How Could You Benefit from a Baby Breathing and Movement Monitor?” Bluebell.

Accessed March 18th, 2023. https://bluebellbabymonitor.com/learn/baby-movement-breathing-monitor-benefits

This is a blog post from the Bluebell website, the baby monitor that inspired this whole project. The title says it all; this 1,000-word post describes why parents need a high-tech baby monitor to quell their anxiety and help the whole family get a good night’s sleep.

King, David. “Marketing Wearable Home Baby Monitors: Real Peace of Mind?” In BMJ:

British Medical Journal 349 (2014). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26518765.

This article was written in 2014 and gives insight to worries and concerns about marketing and regulating wearable baby monitors as they started cropping up. It is from the perspective of a clinical lecturer in pediatrics and touches on the implied threat of SIDS in these devices’ advertising.

Nelson, Margaret K. “Watching Children: Describing the use of baby monitors on

Epinions.com.” Journal of Family Issues, 29(4), 2008, p.516–538.

This 2008 study describes attitudes and practices regarding parental anxiety that were discussed in an online form. The opinions published were all consumer reviews of baby monitors; most of which “depict the baby as both fragile (and thus in need of care) and mischievous (and thus in need of control).” This gives valuable insight to parents’ attitudes and how they use the monitor to soothe their anxieties.

Safe Sleep ABC (@safesleepabc). 2023. TikTok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@safesleepabc?lang=en

This account has 64.3K followers, 992.5K likes, and shares videos explaining safe sleep practices. Since SIDS can be partly prevented by creating a safe environment for infants to sleep in, this account and other blogs are valuable resources for parents.

Strehle, Eugen-Matthias, Gray, William, Sharmila Gopisetti, Richardson, Jenny, Mcguire,

Jackie, and Malone, Sive. “Can Home Monitoring Reduce Mortality in Infants at Increased Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? A Systematic Review” Acta Paediatricia, 101(1), 2011, p.8–13.

This article is a systematic review of 11 studies evaluating the efficacy of baby monitors as a means to prevent SIDS. It found that “there is no high-level evidence that home monitoring may be of use in preventing SIDS; further research is needed.” This confirms that these devices are more for peace of mind than actual medical monitoring.

Project Proposal

One thing parents can’t seem to get enough of is sleep. It’s a distinctly modern problem; juggling a career, a restless infant, and a myriad of other factors of life with a newborn can leave parents exhausted and anxious when it is time to shut their eyes.

I was first tuned to this dilemma last year while I was interning for a UK-based tech startup. I worked for a few months as a marketing intern for the Bluebell smart baby monitor, a wearable sensor that tracks baby’s skin temperature, respiration, and position and uses bluetooth technology to display this information in the Bluebell app. The full monitor suite included the wearable monitor, a camera, and a fitbit-style parent watch.

I was taken aback at first — how could a parent need this much information about their baby’s sleep habits?

As I created social media content for the Bluebell Smart Baby Monitor I became aware of the sheer amount of information available for parents regarding newborn sleep. There is seemingly endless content from experts and mommy bloggers alike advising parents on how to sleep train their babies, the bulk of which focusing on monitoring the newborn through the night.

From the materials I read in this internship position and anecdotal observations I have made as a young woman, there appears to be an increased fear of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS in 21st-century parents. Upscale, wearable baby monitors like the Bluebell monitor and competitors Nanit and Owlet tend to treat SIDS as a looming threat in their marketing materials and educational resources. In addition to the introduction, popularization, and evolution of the baby monitor throughout history, this is a relationship that I am interested in exploring through my multimedia research project.

My research aims to understand the history of baby monitors and how they have been advertised to parents, which I anticipate will illuminate trends in parental anxieties regarding sleep.

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