Baby Cry Translators - For Fun or For Real?

How great would it be, as a new parent, if you had an app that could tell you exactly what your baby needs every time he or she cries?

There are some apps on the market trying to do just that. But do they work? Are they worth the money? And will they disrupt the important parent/child bonding?

 Baby cry translators claim to be able to tell you if your child is hungry, overstimulated, hurt, tired, or needs a diaper change based on his or her cry. These apps use machine learning to identify and then translate cries based on the frequency, pitch, and duration of the sounds. Are they accurate? Studies say not so much. While some studies show that accuracy for 1-2 week old babies is fairly high in distinguishing the difference between a cry for pain and a cry for hunger, that accuracy diminishes as babies get even a few months older and their cries become influenced by other factors including their environments and learned behaviors. Additionally, the artificial intelligence is only as good as its inputs. The “cries” AI uses to build its database are often flawed, with some even coming from adults trying to mimic the cry of a baby.

The better apps keep their cry explanations fairly simple: cries mean either pain, hunger, tiredness, or discomfort. However, some apps claim to be able to tell that a baby’s cry is from a specific reason (earache, for example) or from an emotion such as boredom – emotions that babies don’t develop for several months. According to Barry Lester, a professor at Brown University and author of Why Is My Baby Crying? who has researched baby’s cries for more than 50 years, there are only two kinds of baby cries: pain and everything else. Parents paying attention to their children’s cries and cues will learn the difference.

Many cry translators are free but charge for additional programs such as tracking baby milestones, parent education, etc. If you are looking for apps that track or provide that information, then having a cry translator could be a fun add-on. But you may want to be skeptical of apps that charge for the translator or use apps that provide the tracking and educational material for free.

While having an app – at least at this stage of development – is not a reliable tool, it could be fun to try it out with your baby and see what results you get. But experts caution that parents should not rely on an app to tell them what their babies need. Paying attention to your babies’ cries and cues are an important part of parent/child bonding, and your instinct is more reliable than an app based on machine learning. Additionally, experts recommend that if your babies’ cries are new, different, or longer-lasting than usual, you should consult a doctor – not an app – to ensure nothing is wrong with your baby.

So in theory an app that tells you your baby’s needs sounds good, but, in practice, this type of app is not reliable and can come between you and your child at an important time in your child’s development when you should be building strong bonds with him or her. Play with an app for fun, but pay attention to your baby and her cues to learn what she needs.

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