A Tweet From The Womb
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
news
8:30AM, Wednesday December 17th 2008
An NYU grad student has found a unique way to way to use Twitter. Corey Menscher, whose wife Ellen is eight months pregnant with the couple’s first baby, figured out a novel way to have Twitter notify him every time the baby kicks. For a class project, he invented a pregnancy belt he dubbed the Kickbee, made of a “stretchable band with embedded electronics and sensors” that “transmit small but detectable voltages when they are triggered by movement underneath.” The signals are then wirelessly transmitted to an accompanying Java application via Bluetooth.
“I have a vibrating device in my pocket at all times,” says Menscher. “Every time the baby kicks, it uploads a message to the server and I get a text message on my phone as well.”
“This is kind of high-tech and fun way to be able to keep track of the fetal kick counts,” says Dr. Gayle Olson, an obstetrician at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. “And since it goes out on Twitter, you could send the information to whoever you would want to share it with.”
And you thought Twitter was just for updating friends and followers on what you ate for breakfast and whether it was snowing in your neighborhood. [NYDailyNews]
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
thody
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 08:50 am: [report]
In other news, baby develops cancer in utero because daddy surrounds it with electric current in the womb. Cute, but this doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me.
christianay
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 09:07 am: [report]
The Daily News article from which this post was written states that the technology used is the same as those in other safe medical devices.
vanya
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 09:26 am: [report]
@christianay, some people question the safety of those “safe” medical devices, particularly with regards to EMF.
DrDoctor
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 09:54 am: [report]
@vanya, some people think the government are spying on them via tiny transmitters embedded in their fillings, too.
No, in all seriousness, I respect caution, especially when it comes to pregnancy but I personally think this is an amazing way for the guy too feel more connected to the baby and even the mother. Now if there were only a device that notified everyone when a pregnant mother went into labor…
Wendy Atterberry
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 10:20 am: [report]
I think there is DrDoctor. It’s called “oh crap, my water just broke.”
shannac02
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 11:58 am: [report]
Does this not completely creep anyone else out??? Notifying you when the baby kicks? What? Its called putting your hand on the belly and when baby kicks you know… Just sayin’. I guess this technology would allow more daddies that are overseas or away a lot to be more connected to the pregnancy, but geez… its just creepy.
Perceptible
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 01:18 pm: [report]
I agree shannack02. Creepy and weird. Kudos to the daddy for coming up with, and executing a unique idea. But one has to ask the question of… why?
shannac02
wrote on December 17 2008 @ 01:20 pm: [report]
I’m not really ‘for’ any technology that allows daddies to be even more emotionally uninvolved in their marriage and children’s lives… Sorry. Tangent.
MooK8E
wrote on February 22 2009 @ 11:52 pm: [report]
I totally agree with you two. It’s slightly creepy…and there is no way I’d want to wear something like that in addition to being pregnant unless it were medically necessary for the health of my unborn child. But that’s just me….