I'm tired. So, so tired. Babies: very cute, very bad for sleep.
So it's probably no surprise that this week I published a First Opinion by Ellery Biddle about the Snoo. If no one in your family has had a baby in the past few years, you might not have heard about the Snoo, but it is The Thing among a certain set of parents: a smart bassinet that rocks a baby gently all night and increases the motion if they start to cry. It also makes sure the baby is sleeping in a safe position — you strap them in in a very adorable little straightjacket. Oh, and it costs $1,700 new. Not, as Ellery writes, affordable for most parents, especially those whose babies are at the highest risk of SIDS.
But there's been a workaround in the form of a thriving resale market. When my daughter was about 5 weeks old, during a very rough overnight, I bought a used Snoo for $600, a comparative steal. We'd probably be able to resell it for the same price, the sellers said. That would mean better sleep and more safety for a net zero dollars. Yes, we had to pay the $600 upfront, which many families could not do — but the resale market still made this product far more accessible.
Then Happiest Baby, the company that makes the Snoo, complicated things: They put some of the bassinet app's most important features — like the ability to keep the rocking from going above a certain level — behind a $20-per-month paywall if you didn't get your Snoo directly from Happiest Baby. Snoo families are furious, as Ellery details. My husband and I are a little mad, too.
And I've spent a lot of time thinking about why we're all so upset. If we could afford to pay upfront for even the $600 used Snoo, we can afford the $20 a month. I understand the resentment from those who bought a new one for $1,700 to use with multiple children — you only get the premium features for free for a certain amount of time. But the rest of us?
Part of it, as Ellery says, is that Happiest Baby is getting something from the resale market: The privacy policy makes clear that the app is collecting data about your baby, which they can then sell.
But there's another dynamic, too. In a way, Happiest Baby allowing such a healthy resale market felt almost like a good deed, a rarity in a world where you often don't really own what you've bought. Happiest Baby has made so much money off the Snoo and other products (they offer a $59.95 white-noise stuffed animal), it seemed like they had decided, "We know this product costs a lot. We'll let that used market continue."
The resale market feels almost like a bit of a village, letting us (albeit a privileged us) share the cost of this expensive product. I guess I shouldn't be mad, or at least not surprised, that Happiest Baby wants a cut. That's the nature of health care by app. But it still stings a little.
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Also in First Opinion this week: In far more serious children's health news, Robert Steinglass, Phillip Nieburg, and Ron Waldman, who have all worked for decades to promote vaccination in humanitarian and emergency settings, argue that the ongoing Gaza polio vaccination drive should also offer young kids shots against measles. "Mass measles vaccination campaigns have long been among the earliest health interventions in emergencies. Measles is one of the most highly transmissible diseases known, with an infectivity rate of almost 100% to non-immune individuals, few sub-clinical cases, and a case-fatality rate as high as 15% in undernourished children," they write.
Mary Giliberti of Mental Health America proposes that the moderators in the upcoming presidential debate make sure to ask the candidates about mental health policy. Eight former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn against gutting the agency. Pradeep Natarajan argues that Congress needs to keep funding the All of Us research program. And public health scientist Jess Steier takes a close look at the fluoride and child IQ study that has some up in arms.
Recommendation of the week: I've been rewatching "Jericho," a 2006 show about a small Kansas town in the aftermath of nationwide nuclear attacks. To be clear, it is not a good show. The conspiracy around the attacks makes little sense and the acting and writing are not exactly subtle. But it sure is compelling. And there are some good medical story lines.
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