New App for Translating Your Baby’s Cries
Obie Editorial Team
As a new mom, you can be overwhelmed by the time and effort that goes into caring for a newborn. One of the first things you learn is that your baby cries for everything, and at first you don’t always know what they want. Do they want attention, food, or a diaper change? It can take quite a while before you find the right combination or solution. However, with a newly developed Smartphone app, you can start translating your baby’s cries within 10 seconds, or so the makers say.
The new app called the Cry Translator will record you baby’s cries and tell you in seconds if your baby is hungry, annoyed, bored, stressed, or sleepy. In order to get an accurate reading, the Cry Translator analyzes the pitch, volume, tone, and inflection of your child’s cries and provides you with an answer. The seller for this app is Biloop Technologic, and they say that their tests have been accurate 96% of the time. The app is the culmination of six years of research done by a team in Spain.
The research teams claims that crying has no linguistic barriers and that there are five distinct cries that babies have regardless of culture and language.
Critics have said that gut instinct should be relied upon when trying to understand why your baby is crying, but for new moms this app can be a lifesaver. You don’t automatically know why your baby is upset just because you’ve given birth to them. It takes time to get to know your baby and their habits. The Cry Translator can be used for the first few months to help you get to know your child’s routine, then you can start relying on your gut instinct.
Other critics have said that 10 seconds is too long and a mother should already have figured out the reason for her child’s crying. To be honest, I think this is a little ridiculous. I’ve babysat my nieces for years and I can’t think of too many times where I’ve gotten up and interpreted their crying in under 10 seconds unless it was to retrieve the binky they’d dropped.
Think about all the times you’ve carried your child around the house in the middle of the night because you don’t know why they’re crying. You try a bottle, then cuddling, then giving them their favorite comfort toy. The process of elimination can take a few minutes, so why not try the app if it can help solve the problem quickly?