profiting off of "mommy fear"

[happyhats]

I noticed this when expecting Scarlet and now they I'm researching the few things I need for this new bean, I'm confronted again. It seems everywhere a new mama turns there is a product you NEED if you want your child to survive and thrive. And of course new mamas are so emotional and protective that they not only chose to purchase these products they endorse them to the point of adding more fuel to the flame of mommy wars.

I thought it would be an interesting conversation as I'm sure all mommies have experienced this. If I don't buy this/do this/follow this will my child fail somehow?
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keep it simple

[knittykat]

Oh absolutely! I was actually told by my pediatrician that my daughter wouldn't learn about gravity without a sippy cup. We're still laughing about that one.

I had a great time going through the baby store with my mom. Not having any baby experience for the last, say, 30 years she was astounded at some of the products and the ways they market them.

Swaddlers/Sleep Sacks:
Mom: Why is that baby all tied up?
Me: It's swaddled; some babies like it
Mom: So you use a blanket to wrap them up and put another over them.
Me: Well, yes, or you buy the product.
Mom: Why not just use a blanket?
Me: Some people are afraid babies will suffocate with blankets.
Mom: So they let them be cold?
Me: No, they put them in bags.

Sleep Positioners:
Mom: What the heck is that?
Me: It's a sleep positioner.
Mom: A what what?
Me: People who are afraid the baby isn't sleeping on his back or might roll over, so they use that so they can't.
Mom: They put him in it so he can't move?
Me: Yep.
Mom: They tie him up and put him in a box. No wonder people complain babies don't sleep.

Teething Feeders:
Mom: Okay girl what the hell this?
Me: It's a teething feeder. You put some sort of food in there and they suck it through the mesh
Mom: (grimacing) you have GOT to be kidding me.
Me: No.
Mom: (reading package) "use so your child won't choke on large pieces of food" Why not just NOT give him large pieces of food??
Me: Some people are still worried.
Mom: (shaking head) so they make them suck food through a sock now. I'm surprised you actually made it to 29.

ETA: when I was having Maggie, it was the height of the BPA scare with baby bottles. We used glass bottles for the majority of the time. Then we did use some Avent bottles because they were big enough. But I was kind of bemused that the $10-apiece plastic bottles had "BPA FREE!!!!" plastered all over them, while *glass* bottles, which are about $2 apiece, had no such assertion. I guess the $2 apiece bottles weren't worth trying to market with the Latest and Greatest Fear.
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"Fun is where you find it." --jackierocket

[jettesette]

for me it was baby moniters- I guess I could see the point is the nursery was on a different floor than your master bedroom or you live is a HUGE house but my child was loud enough when he wanted me no need to give him a microphone.

Those alarm systems that go off when a babe stops moving. They are creepy. And if something went wronf would that alarm really make a difference?
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I am so strong I am going to break all your rules with my bare hands! -Elliott

http://mamahuck.blogspot.com/

[Crumb]

I personally believe that about 9/10ths of the things that are sold for babies are marketed solely on mothers' fears. I think I did a pretty good job of weeding out the unnecessary panic-inducing stuff and only bought/used what seemed logical to me. But I'm pretty savvy about seeing through marketing (or so I like to tell myself) and I know not everyone is. Which is why marketing works, of course. Playing on maternal fear has got to be the easiest sell in the universe, and while I don't think it's necessarily the most exploitive, it's high up on the list. My list, anyway.

The one thing I did solely out of fear was buy the creepy (hee!!) alarm system monitor, because the Crumblette decided to sleep on her belly at a very young age and I was wigged out by that. Those suckers are really, really sensitive - they don't go off only if a baby stops moving but if she stops BREATHING; you have like 15 seconds of no movement before the alarm goes off. After about 4 incidents where I forgot to switch the alarm off after picking her up, then being scared nearly witless when the thing DID go off, I stopped using it.

[knittykat]

I suppose, however, if spending $X on a product makes you feel better and sleep easier at night, it might be a worthy spend even if it doesn't actually do anything.

One of the moms in my new moms' group was sitting up nights freaking out because her baby wanted to sleep holding a cloth diaper. She was certain it was going to fall over her face and suffocate her. So I made her a little crocheted hankie-size blankie with holes in it. She was so thrilled, you would have thought I gave her a million dollars. If I had asked for money I'm certain she would have paid any amount for it, because it let her relax and feel like her daughter wasn't going to suffocate.
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"Fun is where you find it." --jackierocket

[Figwit]

Good lord. I'm with Crumb - babies don't need much. Seeing how much crap my friend accumulated when she had her daughter made me sick. It was like... honestly, do you need 3 strollers, a wipes warmer, a rack specifically for bottles, and a blender for just baby food (?!?!).

The book Parenting Inc goes into this concept in detail.

Parents are sold on this fear/desire to make sure their kids are "ahead", independent, smarter, better at motor skills, etc, all at ages that developmentally inappropriate. Sort of like the Baby Einstein DVDs that were proven to be developmentally harmful to children under the age of 18 months (all screen time is, for that age). Fears and ambitions are the key selling points for parents, and marketers know how to capitalize on those quite well.
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good, clean, fair.

small is possible.

[knittykat]

Another (somewhat more innocuous, IMHO) reason for the marketing is convenience. Your life is already so hectic it seems a small price to pay to have anything be a little easier.

I know some people who moved the car seat from car to car. If you can't afford another seat, that's one thing, but I was more than willing to spend the extra $$$ to have a seat permanently in each car, plus one in mom's.

As for the strollers, I did have three strollers. A stroller the seat snaps into (which is super handy when they're tiny), an umbrella stroller to keep in the car for emergencies, and an all-terrain stroller that was really great for walks. The regular stroller was too bouncy even on a paved walkway.

A dishwasher basket for nipples and rings, if you're going to bottle feed, is pretty much essential. They don't get cleaned properly (in the dishwasher) if not set right in the rack, and they could easily fall into the mechanics of it.

But I will absolutely admit I went overboard because A) I didn't know what would work and wanted to have lots of options and B) was willing to pay any cost for a little extra convenience. Sleep deprivation does crazy things to you!
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"Fun is where you find it." --jackierocket

[Jzane]

This is about a vaccine, not necessarily a product per se, but it still falls under the same category. There's a commercial for the Pertussis, or Whooping Cough vaccine for adults, that plays the sounds of a child choking and gasping for air with Whooping Cough. It tells parents that they HAVE to get this vaccine, because every time they pick up their child they could be spreading the virus, and children are supposed to be safe in their mother's arms, not in danger, so go get this now!

Obviously parents need to be aware of medical concerns for their children, but it's just fear mongering. What could be more horrifying to a mother than the sound of their child gasping for air? It would make any mother want to run out and spend money on a vaccine. It's unnecessary to have to listen to a child coughing to spread awareness about a possible disease.

This isn't the exact commercial I was talking about, but it's pretty close. Warning, it is pretty scary to hear, especially if you have kids:

Protect Yourself And The Children You Love

Also, does anybody read Free-Range Kids? It's a blog written by Lenore Skenazy, who believes that children do best when they are given more freedom at an earlier age than typical children are given these days. That's probably a topic for another thread, but here's a post she wrote about baby safety products:

Bubble Babies
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"Garlic tampon!" -Lady_Stardust

[Crumb]

I think the vaccine is pretty different kind of warning, though. Whooping cough really can kill babies, pretty easily. I don't think that falls under the same category as, say, telling parents to buy a diaper-wipe warmer.
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Unrelentingly high and mighty since 2001!

[Figwit]

[BlueJedi]

That commercial freaks me out. I had to change the channel when it started in with the audio of the kid gasping for air.

My mom is the same way about most of the stuff that they make now. Most of it just seems ridiculous to me,but at the same time I can see how easy it would be to want to buy it all. It must be sort of tricky to have to sort through it all and figure out what really is useful, since it's probably different for most people.
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<3

“Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.” – Minor Myers Jr.

[meexie]

On a bit of a tangent, I am aware now to be very careful with my yarn choices if I knit or crochet a baby gift.

Acrylic: easy care. BABY-MELTING ACRYLIC.
Cotton: also potentially easy care. BABY-CHOKING LINT.

and so on. I'm just waiting for a yarn company to start labeling a line of easy-care yarn for baby items with "WON'T MELT YOUR BABY!"
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"I hate that they're giving tea a bad name. Tea is a peaceful, gentle drink." - Teahugger

[Jzane]

[Liat]

Can I just say that I hate that ad and change the channel when it comes on. I especially hate it because the majority of people in my generation and in my province will have received the vaccine as a child.

We managed to not buy a whole lot of extra things for the Sprogling and when Little Bit was born we... Didn't really buy anything. We replaced one thing that worked well with the Sprogling but otherwise she just got hand me downs for everything but clothes. My father did buy us a video monitor that we tried to use for them both but we didn't use it hardly at all. The kids mostly slept with us though so that is the reason for that.
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The Lover, The Lunatic and the Poet are of Imagination all compact.

[Crumb]