to wonder why motion sensor monitors are not more widely used?

[sausagelover]

Having read a little bit about keeping baby in your room or not and lots of people on thread are talking about SIDS... I wonder why motion sensor monitors (pad under the mattress detects breathing and alarms if no motion is detected) are not more commonly used and I think they must help to prevent SIDS?

DD slept in baby hammock right hanging right next to me in bed - I don't think a sensor would be appropriate.

Personally, I would find them quite stress/anxiety inducing & not in keeping with how I chose to parent (where I try to make choices that minimise anxiety/stress for everyone), though if one was required for medical reasons I would have used it for a while I guess.

Finding your baby unresponsive and cool to the touch is one thing, finding her blue and cold is another. Yes, babies do sometimes get into deep sleeps and forget to breathe for a long time, then take a deep breath and start again.

According to the paediatrician we saw, under these circumstances they wouldn't expect to find the baby had turned, or begun to turn blue and they were as sure as they could be that that wasn't what happened with dd.

As I said, I don't consider myself to be a paranoid parent. We were given the monitor as a present when we were expecting our first child and kept it and used it right through all three, with it also being used for our nephew in the interim. We used it because we had it, rather than because we were paranoid they would stop breathing.

If we had had repeated false alarms or found it annoying we would have stopped using it, especially as the boys were both good sleepers and I would have been really annoyed if the darn thing had kept waking them up.

In the 7 years prior to dd being born, neither we nor my sister had a similar experience to what happened with dd. The monitor is designed to wait a discrete period of time before going off to take into count episodes of deep sleep. I assume my two boys and my nephew all slept deeply and had hiatuses (sp?) in their breathing on occasion, but the alarm never sounded in these cases - because they weren't in danger.

For me, after the episode with dd, the monitors were just added reassurance - I didn't sleep much for months afterwards anyway, so probably/possibly would have been alerted to a problem anyway.

Dd was in a bedside crib for which we had a bespoke mattress made so that it abutted straight up to our own mattress right next to me from when she was born until she was 12 months old anyway. Despite the fact that she was essentially lying right next to me, when she stopped breathing, neither I nor dh were aware of a problem until the alarm went off. The consultant at the hospital actually said to us that in his opinion the alarm saved her life.

At the end of the day, it come down to personal preference and parenting style. As long as they are not used as alternative to vigilance and conscious parenting, whose business is it whether or not you use one anyway?

I really don't get why people are getting so worked up about it. If you want one and intend to use it wisely rather than as a alternative to being vigilant, surely that's your choice and not something you should have to feel judged for.

I agree moose - if it's not for you, don't buy it. Maybe people have inferred from the OP that they are lesser beings for not using one?

"But for most healthy infants, why would a parent want to buy a machine to do that job when they can do it better and more reliably for themselves?"

Don't be so ridiculous.The machine provides constant monitoring of baby's breathing, you can't do that when you're asleep! If parental instinct was enough, babies wouldn't die of SIDS.

Well said mamasparkle.

I am not inferring that anybody is a lesser being for not using one.

However, it seems that some people have strange ideas about them. Please explain why having it would make someone MORE anxious?? Can't get my head around it.

mamasparkle - thanks for your helpful and nuanced response to my post

How do you know someone wouldn't wake up if their baby stopped breathing? Surely the whole point is that if you are in the same room as them, you are completely atuned to their breathing and, more importantly they are less likely to suffer problems in the first place since your presence (unlike the monitor) has a protective effect.

There has been quite a bit of research into these devices by organisations like FSIDS who have no agenda in not recommending them, yet they have not found them to be helpful overall.

How is it ridiculous to point that out?

I'm delighted if you used one and I'm delighted if you found it personally helpful - but to label me ridiculous for choosing to go with both evidence and common sense, is pretty rude IMO.

Also I think the comparisons with SCUBU units are not helpful.

I can quite see that they might be useful in a clinical environment, where sick or premature babies are being cared for by nurses who may be in and out, changing shift, or attending to another child.

It's pointless to compare that environment with a healthy child sleeping just inches away from a parent.

There are all sorts of devices considered useful or even essential in a hospital environment, which would be totally unnecessary at home.

I'm utterly happy for people to use them if it's reassuring and helpful for them. But that doesn't alter my view that they are not necessary for most people.

The parent might wake up if the baby stopped breathing, or they might not. You don't know. And just because you have one of these monitors doesn't mean you can't keep baby in same room as you and be atuned to their breathing and so on.

I also don't think it's pointless to compare hospital use to a healthy child when we are talking SIDS, as sudden infant death in an otherwise healthy child isn't it?

I think they're fine if they provide parents with reassurance - however they shouldn't be used as a substitute to parental care.

"Surely the whole point is that if you are in the same room as them, you are completely atuned to their breathing and, more importantly they are less likely to suffer problems in the first place since your presence (unlike the monitor) has a protective effect."

I'm sorry but I don't see how me being in the same room as my baby will prevent her from stopping breathing.

There is a theory that SIDS is caused by babies forgetting to breathe. A monitor will alert me if that happens.I don't see how, if I am in a deep sleep with my baby in the cot beside me, I will somehow "know" if she has stopped breathing. The machine will however.

Just think it's a bit ridiculous,yes,to suggest you will know if your baby is going to stop breathing.

"How do you know someone wouldn't wake up if their baby stopped breathing?"

Becaus babies die of SIDS,very sadly,that's how I know.

"I'm sorry but I don't see how me being in the same room as my baby will prevent her from stopping breathing."

Well the evidence is that it does. No-one knows exactly why - but the stats are pretty clear.

I didn't wake up when my baby stopped breathing and she was only a couple of centimetres away from me.

I have heard that new mothers do attune to their baby's breathing and noise patterns and very often they are alerted if there is a problem. In my case, on this particular night, I wasn't, probably just because we were particularly exhuasted (and in my case very anaemic) and therefore sleeping very deeply.

I think that's just it though isn't it? Nobody really knows what happens with SIDS, nobody knows whether or not a baby like dd would have survived anyway without the monitor being present.

For me, personally, after the incident, the monitor/s were a conscious choice, as I felt they would be a back up to my, by then, extremely ott vigilance. However, I totally understand why some people prefer a more natural approach to parenting and feel a machine would be intrusive to that process. Indeed, I never felt the need to clip a monitor onto either of my boys when they were in their car seats, prams or swings - I trusted my instincts. However with dd, after the incident I no longer felt confident of my instincts and therefore chose to have some back-up.

I presume experts are not able to say definitively whether or monitors prevent a significant number of SIDs, as I would assume they don't have any data on babies whose monitors went off and were resuscitated by their parents (such as us), they only have data on those babies where the monitor didn't prevent the SID. Obviously they don't want to / can't go ahead and recommend monitors to everyone so that thousands of people then go out and buy them and either a) they turn out not to prevent SIDS in the majority of cases, so the experts get sued or b) parents start to feel complacent that their babies are being protected by technology, so feel they perhaps don't need to be as vigilant themselves as they would have been otherwise.

Obviously this is a very emotive topic, but there really is not right or wrong way. I say again, its down to personal preference and parenting choices and is not something anyone should be judged for either way.

At the end of the day, we all love our babies and want to do what we believe is best for them. No-one takes this sort of choice lightly and people should be respected for the choices they do make.

When I was 8 my next door neighbours baby sadly died of cot death.I can vividly remember the ambulance men coming round to our house in the early hours of the morning so my mum could go and sit with the neighbour and the devastation that her family, and indeed all the close friends and neighbours felt.
Consequently it has always been something that I feared and when i became pregnant with DS1 was one of my biggest worries. We bought a monitor with a sensor pad and used it for both my sons. Although i knew it wouldn't prevent cot death it was extremely reassuring to know that if anything had happened to cause DS to stop breathing then i would have known about it straight away. The few false alarms we had were terrifying but the security of knowing that breathing was being monitored far outweighed that.

My ds was born at 27 weeks, we co-slept for about 8 months then he moved into his own cot.
I was constantly checking on him and during the day i was checking literally every 5 mins. I then realised I did actually sleep at some point during the night so If I couldn't check on him, why not get a machine that would.
I agree with you sausagelover, it gave me peace of mind that I could sleep whilst my babies breathing was being monitored.
The first machine i bought went off all the time so I exchanged and this machine has been fine.
I would recommend them to anyone as they gave me peace of mind.

Good post moosemama - everyone does what they feel best for their dc.

theyoungvisitor my reference to SCBU was imo very relevant. My dd's clinical picture was precisely the same several days/even weeks before she was d/c from hospital. She was a healthy baby all along - just premature. As for quality of supervision - if anything I'd say it was greater in hospital as there were always two staff in the room, whereas at home I would not always be next to baby as I have another dc to attend to plus make meals, shower etc. As I said, a nurse agreed with me that it was a worthwhile purchase but it was me who sought out her advice rather than waiting for a medical professional to suggest it. Also, I don't think those of us with premature or even sick babies are excluded from this thread and our experiences with this type of monitor may be useful information for other parents.

Meant 'for all three of ours', not 'all three of hours'!