It turns out theres a reason for that.
Take the the $149 uterine activity monitor fromBloomlife.
Its a new product, but the idea of measuring and tracking a pregnant womans contractions is nothing new.
A1998 study of home contraction monitorsfound that they didnt help detect early labor or predict delivery.
With a contraction monitor on the free market, anybody can decide theywantone regardless of whether its recommended.
That meant I wasnt really sure whether my contractions were at the textbook five minutes apart.
Selling peace of mind really means cashing in on insecurity.
It implies: Without this equipment, you should worry.
But the researchers who actually studied the topic came to the opposite conclusion.
This is a great scenario from a marketers point of view.
The manufacturers of these devices dont make claims about being able to save lives.
Instead they sell the idea of peace of mind.
A 1988 reviewpublished in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciencesfound exactly that.
While the technology has changed since thenno more fiddly wires, for examplethe usefulness of the machine hasnt.
Selling peace of mind really means cashing in on insecurity.
To this day, theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics(AAP) recommendsagainst breathing monitors for healthy babies.
Your doctor would help you obtain a tested, medical-grade gear instead.
Owlet suggests youcheck the fit of the sock, nothing more.
Even though its claims looked sketchy, the maker says Ava is FDA approved.
The FDAdivides medical devices into three classes, and only demands pre-market approval for Class 3 devices.
If you want assurance that the gear does what it says, good luck finding any.
The makers say they have conducted a clinical trial but havent gotten around to publishing it yet.
The researchers didpresent it as a posterat theAmerican Society of Reproductive Medicine(ASRM) meeting in 2016.
They concluded that the bracelet can detect some measurements that change along with the state of a womans cycle.
So its promising, but not proven effective like the companys marketing implies.
If you choose to use a gadget thats unproven or that doctors dont recommend, thats your right.
Just dont buy the hype thats telling you to spend money and emotional effort on chasing peace of mind.
Illustration by Angelica Alzona.
