ArticleBMJ paediatrics open2025
The quantified baby: real-world use of infant sleep monitoring technologies and its impact on parent mental health and medical decision-making.
Article in BMJ paediatrics open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assessing the feasibility of a wearable consumer device for capturing newborns' sleep patterns in naturalistic environments.Infant behavior & development · 2026Article
- Noninvasive Measurement of Infant Respiration During Sleep: A Validation Study.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundManaging sleep is a challenging experience in early parenthood, and infant sleep problems are associated with negative outcomes within the family. A large market of devices to monitor infants' real-time health information during sleep has emerged, including smart cameras, under-mattress sensors and wearable devices. The impacts of these products on maternal and parental mental health and medical decision-making are poorly understood.
methodsWe performed a systematic search for products detecting health data from sleeping children on the global retail platform Amazon in March 2023. A total of 11 262 unique reviews from 48 eligible products were retrieved from the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia sites and subjected to sentiment and thematic analyses to capture the characteristics of user families, contexts of device use and impacts on maternal and child health.
resultsParental anxiety and infants' high-risk medical status were cited by families as the main reasons to purchase products. When devices worked well, their use was associated with improved parental sleep quality and decreased anxiety. However, poor device performance was commonly reported and was linked to increased parental stress and anxiety and disrupted child sleep. Users reported making medical decisions based on device output. Price, privacy, and unsafe use of devices emerged as ethical issues.
conclusionsUse of a smart sleep device in the home is common and has implications for the health of both children and adults. Benefits and harms must be understood by parents and healthcare providers in order to support evidence-based decision-making around their use.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.