Few words can stop a new parent’s heart quite like “NICU.”
Nearly 1 in 10 US babies are whisked to the neonatal intensive care unit at birth, often because they are preterm or critically ill. It can be a really scary place to start life.
My premature twins, born at 33 weeks and four days, spent several weeks in the NICU tethered to machines that helped them breathe and consume breast milk.
Before they could get discharged, they had to breathe and feed independently and pass a 90-minute car seat test.
Every hospital requires babies to go home in a car seat to comply with state safety laws.
NICU babies, for their part, tend to have underdeveloped neck and chest muscles that cause them to slump in a car seat, leading to breathing difficulties or drops in their heart rate and oxygen.
In the test, nurses track an infant’s heart rate, breathing rate and oxygen levels in the car seat to make sure it’s safe for them to travel home.
One of my twins failed the car seat test twice because her oxygen dropped too low. She passed the third time, but we were concerned about bringing her home without the machines that had monitored her vitals since birth.
Our NICU doctor suggested we try an Owlet Baby Monitor. It’s designed to track an infant’s pulse rate, oxygen and sleep trends and alert parents in real time if something is wrong.
Her recommendation did come with a warning: The Owlet could cause false alarms, needlessly sending us to the emergency room.
Unfortunately, the hospital did not allow us to put the FDA-cleared Dream Sock ($299) on our baby while she was hooked up to the machines to test its accuracy.
We were on our own with the sock, which looks like a tiny gladiator sandal and fits snugly on a baby’s foot thanks to Velcro-like straps.
It contains an electronic sensor that feeds info to the Owlet Dream app on the parent’s phone.
Some of the data was insight we hadn’t received in the hospital, like whether our daughter was sleeping lightly or deeply.
We were alerted a few times when her oxygen started to slip during mealtime, and we changed her feeding position accordingly. Fair warning: The siren is LOUD. You do not forget your first Owlet alarm, which is helpful for acting fast.
One major downside is that the device will blare if the baby has kicked it off or if it has been carried out of range of its base reader.
Being kicked loose doesn’t trigger the same alarm as a critical breathing event — as in, the baby is not breathing — but prepare to be startled at least once for a harmless reason.
I jolted my husband awake a few times when I brought the baby outside to let our dog out, and the Owlet bleated because it was out of range.
As a new parent, especially one who has spent time in the NICU, the last thing you need is another headache.
Furthermore, our pediatrician warned that new parents can become fixated on the app and overreact to the slightest change in the baby’s stats.
However, I’m glad we tried the Owlet. We used the device until our twin posted good numbers over several weeks.
It could prove useful for babies like ours with a history of respiratory issues or those struggling to find their bedtime groove. The Owlet takes the guesswork out of a lot of aspects of newborn life.
