Consumer Baby Monitors May Get Vital Signs Wrong

Inaccurate readings may create needless panic or a dangerous sense of false security

A doctor was inspired to do a study comparing home monitors to those used in the hospital when a home monitor sent a family to the hospital unnecessarily. Shutterstock

Two popular monitors that promise to keep parents informed about their babies’ vital signs scored poorly in a test comparing them with actual hospital quality monitors, researchers say.

The commercially available monitors, which are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, promise to sound an alarm via parents’ cell phones if the baby’s heart rate or blood oxygen levels move into danger zones, according to the study in JAMA.