Health Trackers Are Everywhere. Do Babies Need Them, Too?

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily. More and more people are wearing technology, fitness bands, smart rings, biometric shirts. These devices help track everything, from the heart rate to even the temperature of their skin. The latest frontier, health tech for babies, and it's being supercharged by AI. So today, my colleague, Sapna Moshwari, tells us about her family's experience with all of this health-tracking technology. And we discuss whether it's helping us just adding to our anxieties, or maybe both. It's Wednesday, September 23rd. Okay, so Sapna, as you know, we are here today to talk about not just wearable technology, but all kinds of technology that helps you track health data. And I just want to lay my cards out on the table and say that I don't use any of this stuff. I don't have an Apple Watch. I don't use an aura ring. I'm very much of the mindset that I don't need to spend $300 on some kind of piece of jewelry that's going to tell me that if I drink, I won't sleep very well. So do you think by the end of this episode, I will realize the error of my ways, or will I be more certain? Hmm, great question. I don't know how you're going to feel, but I can tell you that I never thought I would be using a bunch of this technology, or that my family would, and it all kind of crept into my life. How so? So, I'm a mother of two. And when my first kid was born about four years ago, I was looking for a baby monitor. And at that time, as I did my research, everyone kept recommending this monitor called the NANET. The NANET? Okay. And tells what the NANET does. So the NANET is a baby monitor that hooks up to your home Wi-Fi and lives as an app on your phone. And it's kind of like the eye of Soron. It's a grabbing data from the video footage and log-in-wifes for the eye of Soron. Is that really why you were watching your baby? Well, you know, you might not think so at first, but it was pretty amazing. So, you open this app, and the app is tracking the baby's movements, it logs when they woke up, when they fell asleep. It can see when their eyes open and close. It's looking at all of these movements and sleep patterns of your baby. And then it's putting it into this digestible format for any parent. So my husband and I would open the app, and we would look at the Insights tab. And we would see, okay, how many times did we visit our baby overnight? How many hours of sleep did she get? How many times did she wake up? And when she woke up, how long was she awake before she put herself back to sleep? And so from this app, you can check on your baby from anywhere, whether you're at home or at the grocery store, or maybe even at your office. And one of the things that hooked us on this app was, the video camera would make these cute montages of these moments of greeting our daughter in the morning, and this look of joy on her face as we picture up. And the Nana is just one of many of these baby tech products. There's a really big rival of Nana called the outlet, and that tracks the baby's pulse through a sock. A sock. Like literally in the foot. That's what that's like. Oh, wow. There's a sensor in the sock. There's an app that tracks feedings and diaper changes, and with that information markets and AI chat bot to parents who want to understand their baby's habits. There's monitors that send alerts to parents when their baby's face might be covered in the crib and on and on. And across the board, I would say these apps are feeding off parents' anxiety, their questions, the sort of persistent is this normal? Yeah. This is so interesting, just because I just had dinner with a couple of friends of mine, and the husband was saying that he couldn't sleep with his newborn because he was so worried that the newborn would stop breathing and he kept checking in the middle of the night. And the only thing that allowed him to sleep was it turned out he bought a Nana because he was like, "Okay, I can sleep because this thing will alert me if my kid stops breathing." And so I know I can actually sleep because I'll get woken up if there's a problem. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's the running theme with all of these products is they tap into a new parent's desire for more sleep. Anyone with an infant knows that sleep is sort of this holy grail when you have an infant in the home. And there's a lot of other anxieties that they promised to sort of solve. And I noticed this really with my second child when we bought another Nana that it started incorporating more AI into the app where it wasn't just giving me feedback on what happened or monitoring them, but it was now giving me actual advice, including when they should sleep next or how we should interpret different things that they're doing in their crib. And of course, all of these products are trying to sell you the advice with a subscription fee a lot of the time. And it started raising these questions for me around, "Okay, when should we trust our own instincts versus artificial intelligence when it comes to decision-making around our kids' health?" And on top of that, how should we think about AI when it comes to our own health? So as I was marketed all of these different forms of advice on how to watch over my child, I decided I wanted to know more about this company whose products stare at my kids all night. And it turns out it has way bigger ambitions around AI and how to use the data. So I went to interview the CEO Anushka Salinas at the Nana Office in New York. Well, yeah, I loved learning more about what Nana is up to. And what did you learn? What does she tell you about the company? So Salinas sees a lot of potential in the data that Nana is collecting and the insights that they can give parents over time. As you're right, so 90% of a child's brain develops, you know, between the ages of zero and five, it's when their brain is most plastic and yeah, kids are going to the pediatrician basically once a year for a checkup, 22 minutes is the average amount of time that that checkup lasts and yet children are sort of developing every single day. Obviously, we both know this having two young kids. And so we have this infrastructure and opportunity to unlock this black box that's the first five years of life that exists today. And the message that Nana is pushing is that there is a black box around this stage of a child growing as they develop motor skills, as they learn to talk, as they engage with the world around them. So why isn't there more information around this? And what they're saying is, Nana can provide that information. We have the measurements every single day of what's happening, right? So the power of that. Right now the company is focused on sleep and babies, but it wants to expand beyond sleep into a kid's overall health and development. And investors see that potential as well. Nana just raised another $50 million last year and its CEO says that with more data, the company can help parents ultimately make better decisions for their kids. People have questions every single day, multiple times a day. Is this normal? Should my child be doing this? How do I handle that, right? Her argument is, if you look at modern parenting today, if people are googling, they're turning to Reddit, they're now asking chat GPT. Sure. What she's saying and what Nana is saying is, this device is collecting this personalized, really specific information about your child. So Nana has this advantage in giving you advice or information or helping you track milestones that are very specific to your child. For example, if you are trying to see, you know, what is it normal for a child to walk or crawl, the CDC will offer a range for kind of an average child. The CDC will say like, between the age of this and this, your child should be expected to walk like very general. Right. If you're going to clot or wherever, that's the information that they have, right? It's like the range of normal is this to this. We have all the information that's been captured every single day that can help you understand what's right for your child and also what's right for your family, right? So is there something Nana could do by looking at my baby in the crib to tell me that, like, crawling maybe, I don't know, around the corner or like talking maybe around the corner for her specifically? Definitely. And that's on the horizon for us. Really? Yeah. And I think there is a real conviction from the company in that this kind of information will help parents sleep better, have less anxiety, give them this extra resource that is almost a disadvantage to not have. And she even imagines that parents will keep Nana's in their kids bedroom to the age of 10. But we envision a world where people will have their data from zero to 100. And right now, you know, people aren't really starting kids aren't really starting to wear Apple Watches and things like that until around age 10 for the most part, sometimes a little younger. So we really think of that zero to 10 as Nana's kind of the place that we live. Okay. Keeping cameras in a child's bedroom till they're 10 years old. Maybe some kids are totally fine with this, but I can also imagine some kids really not liking that. Not liking being surveilled, maybe that's not healthy for them. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't really happen so much today. So the total experiment, I could see a lot of kids really not being okay with this, but on the other hand, you know, the CEO of Nana is saying, we are going to keep this device in in my kids room for longer. Her own kid. Her own kids. And so, so let's see how it goes. Okay. But what about like privacy issues, like irrespective of how the kid feels? Like what is Nana saying that it's doing with all that data that it's collecting by having a camera in the kids room. Yeah, so this is a really big point because obviously parents. or really careful about what they put around their children. - Understandably. - Understandably. And so, Nanit says that it does not sell the data to anyone else, it doesn't target ads against it. - Not yet. - Not yet. They say that they won't and that the subscription fee that they're charging customers is proof that the customer and the baby, that is not the product, they're charging that money so they can offer all of these insights and information to the user. - What's that phrase they say in technology that when the product is free, you are the product and when it costs something like a subscription, then you are not the product. So that sort of makes sense to me and what I understand about selling data. - Yeah, that's right. And that's what the company would say here. - So after you did this interview with the CEO, obviously as a mother of two children, did that help you weigh the cost benefit analysis just about whether you should have this in your own home? - Yeah, it did help me see some of the benefits and look at how they're using this information, how it could help me in the future. But some people in my own life have also pointed out some of the drawbacks and disadvantages of using this sort of technology, namely my own mother, mother Maheshwari. - So your own mother didn't like this, but what were her objections? - I was many. - When you installed the app on my phone, I was shocked, you know? I am just like (laughs) fortified, but I guess I have to accept, I have to take the beta's instruction. So the first time my mom watched my daughter overnight, I installed the nana app on her phone. - Yeah, it has started sending me messages. Your baby was tending, you know, that time ago, the baby moved there, you know? I said, "My God, this is too much." It was stressing me, now I'm looking at the monitor and thinking, "God, I have to watch this thing." I don't think I liked it. I don't know how you guys put up with that. - She was shocked by the constant flow of information. She didn't understand why she was getting these push notifications from this app. - One day I put it on my phone and my phone battery died. I didn't realize the whole night was on. It maybe was in charge. In the morning, I woke up and I said, "Oh my God, what to have to happen to baby?" And I woke up and I was like charged to her room. I said, "My God, this baby must be crying." You know, she was asleep. I probably would have heard without that monitor. - And it was such a shift from how she used to put my two siblings in, me to sleep. (upbeat music) - So besides it being jarring and maybe overly stimulating, did your mom have like specific objections to the information that she was getting or the instructions that you were giving her about this technology and how to use it? - So my mom's of the camp that this kind of information gave us a sense that we could and should control a baby's environment to really optimize the sleep. - What does that mean a little bit optimized the sleep? - Yeah, so Nana actually studies the optimal temperature that a baby can sleep at. It's one of the studies they're conducting right now. - What is the optimal temperature for a baby? - Well, they believe it's between 68 and 72 degrees, but they're finding out for sure. - Okay. - But it's also kind of lore in the parenting world. I think you could probably find a lot of different sources that tell you that the temperature has to be between 68 and 72 degrees. And to my mom, this is a completely crazy behavior. - Who does sleep with the room temperature? Does it is shocking 68 degree? Oh my God, you must be kidding. Baby can sleep in any kind of temperature, even I have seen India growing up 120 degree, 110 degree. The kids are sleeping. - Well, at 120 degrees, mom. - At least 100 degree, you know, easy. A baby slept just fine. So I think your mind has been conditioned by these monitors what the temperature should be. So this is where you know, this technology is teaching you. There's certain things to be in certain ways. But I don't believe in that. - She really believes that babies can sleep in all kinds of environments and that you're bringing a baby into your lifestyle, they will adjust and that is just how parenting is. And my mom thinks this kind of information feeds this unhealthy obsession among modern day working parents. - Now, my God's bad routine, seven o'clock, or you know, and then you are on such a schedule, even I feel my bad feeling, oh my God, I have to do all these things then you have to and I put them in a sack or I put them in there. You know, you don't want to touch them. Once you drop them in the crib, that's it. - It's all tied to these really strict schedules for our kids. And she's of the view that you can't optimize a baby. You can't optimize a little human being. As much as adults maybe trying to optimize every facet of our diets and exercises and this and that, it's a baby. - Babies are not robots. You still need to go with the, you know, your instinct, baby's cue, and a bit relaxed about the whole thing. - I think she just sees all of this as an unnecessary layer for what is perhaps the most universal of human experiences. - Raising a child. - Raising a child. - Stephanie, you mentioned work in the idea that this technology helps working parents. And I do want to point out that I don't know how old your mother is, but there are a lot more women in the workforce now than a generation ago. And we know that parenting disproportionately falls to women very often as opposed to men. But I do wonder, maybe in a little pushback to your mother, whether this technology is helping to balance out what is a gender imbalance in parenting by allowing, for example, both parents to sleep better at night instead of perhaps just the dad. - Right, and I think this is something that came up a lot in my reporting around this story is, this technology really appeals to a lot of folks because they may not have a great maternity or paternity leave and they often have two working parents who have certain schedules. And so, of course, there's going to be this desire to get the child to sleep at a certain time, to have a schedule so that you can make that puzzle of life in 2026 in America work for you. And it's true, my mom didn't work when she had us and she didn't have to adhere to this sort of work schedule while raising three kids. But her bigger concern is, you know, is our generation leaning so much on technology that we're replacing some of our human abilities, some of the things that, you know, make us people. And I heard this concern echoed from a pediatrician I spoke with as well. And she said, you know, instead of tuning into what your baby is trying to tell you, observing them yourself, learning their little cues for when they're tired or when they need something from you, are we relying ultimately too much on apps and technology and chatbots? And where does that go from here? (upbeat music) And of course, you know, we've been talking about babies, but this type of data collection, sleep scoring, optimization, these are all things that have been happening with adults for some time now and it's only set to expand. With all of the advances we're now seeing with AI, we are in this new era of being encouraged to rely on this technology for some of the most personal decisions we can make about our health and our bodies. (upbeat music) We'll be right back. Okay, Sepna, so so far we've only been talking about tracking and analyzing data for babies, but obviously a lot of adults like to track their own data, like wearables are a huge market, lots of people listening to this podcast, probably use one or know somebody who does. So help me understand how big of a market it is. Like I wonder if you have a way of quantifying it in some way. - Well, let me tell you, basically half of Americans have one of these things that are tracking our health in some sort of way. - God, half of Americans. - That's right, do you remember the Fitbit? - I do remember the Fitbit. That was something that told you to take 10,000 steps a day, right? - That's right. - People suddenly bought Fitbits and now everybody was talking about their steps. - Yes, so that has given way to a different world where now people are wearing smart watches but they're also wearing the whoop, they're wearing the aura, they're wearing all of these different devices and they're way more sophisticated than just counting your steps. And it's interesting. I mean, aura and whoop are companies that could go public that have been valued in the many billions of dollars. More broadly wearables and this market is approaching $100 billion according to some analysts and more and more people are using them to not just track their activity but to get this AI-fueled advice on what they should do. - Can you just give me an example of that, like what are the actual functions on a whoop or an aura ring that are more complicated or sophisticated that people might actually want? - Yeah, so I mean, it's tracking your sleep and actually funnily enough, it gives you a sleep score the same as an ant and it gives you for your baby. I can give you really detailed feedback on your exercise habits and whoop in particular offers something called a recovery score for its users every morning and it comes in three different colors, red, yellow and green and they say it's based on a bunch of metrics. Stress, if you're feeling sick, how poorly you ate or how well you ate, how hard you work. And then they shoot out this number that's supposed to tell you how ready your body is to take on the day. Wow. And just to be clear, you know, these are consumer products, not medical devices, so this is a sort of label that came up with, but it's user's love it. Okay, but like, how does this actually help you? Because I can imagine that the advice this thing is giving you is probably advice you kind of knew already. Like, what is it doing that common sense and the internet weren't already doing? Oh, Rachel, this is the lot of its perspective. Okay, so I mean, to be fair, I don't own one of these devices. Okay. I wear an Apple watch. I use it more for the timer. I use it kind of to keep a loose eye on, you know, whether I exercise or moved or if I'm traveling, you know, oh, wow, like, look how many steps I made, but my husband recently started wearing a whoop. And so I've gotten kind of a closer look at these devices and how they can alter a person's habits. And I got to say, you know, doctors have been telling him to do this or that for years, but now that whoop tells him he actually listens. Yes, he does. Oh, my God. Wait, so what's that dynamic? Why is he listening to a whoop? What is it telling him? So I wanted to talk to my husband for this episode, but he refused. So I did the next best thing and I decided to interview the friend who got him into the whoop. You are kind of whoop patient zero in our household. That is flattering. I guess you could say. Okay. Tell us about the friend. Yes. So our friend Kevin Huang is a trader for a hedge fund, and so probably more than most people, he's obsessed with data. It felt like something that would drive with my own personality, kind of gamifying your health in a way. Last fall, he got a whoop after a bunch of his friends were talking up all of these metrics that the whoop collects. It felt like whenever you talk to someone who also has a whoop, that's the single commonality of, oh, well, how old are you? And how old is your whoop, thank you are. And one of the things that got him hooked right away on this thing was something called the whoop age. Okay. What is a whoop age? So it's this number that is such a good marketing gimmick for this device. And it's based on a bunch of things. Based on your sleep performance, performance is such an absurd word to use, but it is a common word now for this. It's based on your resting heart rate, the amount of activity you engage in every day. And Kevin, who is 37 at the time, did not score so hot. What did he score? How old was his whoop age? My first whoop age was actually 44, which was a bit of a shocking number. He said he was 44. Oh, no, that's so much older. I don't think it's fair to put someone in a whole different decade without their permission. No, how did he respond? It was a wake call for him and he made some pretty big lifestyle changes as a result. Like what? And so I started waking up regularly at about 5 a.m. on work days to go to the gym to do 45 minutes of cardio every day. He started waking up an hour earlier than usual to exercise before work. Kind of seeing on a day-to-day basis what your recovery is, what your sleep score is. It's kind of like a daily report card of your health and well-being. And, you know, very motivating in that way. He was really focused on his sleep and recovery. And he's watching his diet. So if I eat clean and healthy, then, you know, the recovery score usually is a lot better. Whereas if I'm eating, you know, a lot of fried food and a lot of high sodium food, the recovery score will be lower. And what is his whoopage? Well, about a year later, his whoopage is now 35. Congratulations, Kevin. You're back in your 30s. So, okay, so if he went from a 44-year-old whoopage to 35, that's pretty impressive. If we are to believe that the whoopage actually means something. Right, which is a significant caveat here. But, you know, he does feel healthier and he's doing this in part for his kids to be a more active dad and to hopefully live longer eventually, too, because of these significant lifestyle changes he made. That is so interesting because I'm going to bet that like your husband, he probably knew that those changes would be good for himself before he had a whoop and a whoopage. And yet, it took the whoop and the whoopage to actually influence his behavior. Yeah, that's right. And I think that's similar to some of what the Nana CEO was pushing around the company in the sort of specificity of the data that they offer in the recommendations tailored to your child. The whoop was tracking him specifically. I think that the advice then that he got from this app and from this product felt really meaningful because it was tailored to his activities and all the information he'd been feeding the device over a couple of weeks. And I think that's the difference in why this advice might feel more powerful. That actually makes a lot of sense when you think about the fact that like just as an example, people pay personal trainers, right? And it's not necessarily because they don't know what the exercises are or that they need somebody to like make sure they're postures correct, they don't hurt themselves. A lot of times it's just if you pay somebody, you will actually show up to the gym. So it sort of sounds like there's something about getting tailored specific information that makes you think like I really got to do something as opposed to just hearing like people should eat more fruits and vegetables. Yeah, I think that's right. And it was seeing Kevin change his habits and talk about the whoop and his whoop age that convinced my husband to join the sort of the cult around this product. You're kind of answering my question here. How do you feel about him joining the cult? Like does he talk about it incessantly in his own whoop age now? Well, I think the weirdest thing is that whoop has really entered the chat of our relationship if we are going out with friends, let's say we have a great evening, maybe we've had a couple cocktails. You know, the next day he's sort of lamenting, oh man, like drinking is never a good idea. Look at my numbers kind of similarly if you have a decadent meal or if sleep didn't go great one night. I'm then left looking at his whoop recovery score, he's opening the app and showing me. And it kind of gives me anxiety of like, oh my god, his score is not very good. No, you're worrying about his whoop scores. That's like such a bummer. That's like such a buzzkill. I mean, well, it has this like layer of reality too. Okay, oh my gosh, like we didn't sleep great. We didn't eat great. We had a little too much fun last night and here are the numbers to show for it. But on the flip side, when you get a great night of sleep or you eat very well or you've had some great habits, the whoops positive feedback feels like a reward. A blessing, if you will. And I think that's what they're going for. It sounds like whoop is basically just wagging its finger at you. Yeah, but with the really tailored metrics and data. That's great. How fun. You know, I can't help but notice some of these two stories that you told me today. Even though they involve people who really love their data, whether it's like you and the Nanit and your kid or your husband, it also feels like there's some kind of trade-off because like somebody in these stories is getting kind of annoyed by this, whether it's your mother or maybe even you. Is that how you see it? I mean, I think there is this tension right now between people who sort of subscribe to this data making their lives better and being worth collecting and being the way of the future. And those who say, you know, what's the point? Like, do we need any of this? Should we brick our phones and unplug and do this less? And I think it's a tension that exists in our society writ large. And I'm really curious to see if these companies who are trafficking in this world are right. And that this is the way of the future and that, you know, this conversation will seem trite when we all have libraries of data from 0 to 100. And it feels too, like, this is coming at a time when we're just learning about how AI can be used to interpret all of this information. We know that AI sort of thrives on data. And here we are collecting reams and reams of data around how we breathe in the case of a baby, but also walk, move, eat, sleep. What kinds of information, recommendations will we get from all of that? How could this affect us as we age? I mean, right now, one thing that really struck me as I was researching this, I talked to a researcher who had been studying people using wearables and all of these smart watches and aura rings and whoops. And she was saying that what they have found largely as the people optimizing their wellness are those that are already well, which made me laugh because it did make me think about a lot of the people in my own life who are using this technology. But, you know, on the other hand, there are some pretty amazing breakthroughs that some of these wearables have come to around identifying early onset Parkinson's or different things related to the heart. And so as people live longer, have more of this information, who knows maybe some of this data could be much more meaningful than just a sleep score or how you should exercise one day or another. I want to come back to something that you said earlier that I have just been thinking about this entire conversation that I think is so interesting, which is this idea that all of this, even given all of these benefits, that we are losing some part of our intuition and our ability to like listen to our instincts. Because we are living in an age right now where like one of the dominant stories is AI in some ways taking away from our humanity. And I do. I just sort of wonder like how you as a person who is covering this and living this and using this, how are you weighing all of those benefits that you just mentioned and all of those unknown benefits potentially against what your mom is concerned about, right? That this is just like making us less of what makes us people. - Yeah, I think that's the big question here and I feel a lot of concern around that. I mean, is technology dulling our instincts? - Our senses. - Our senses really, and that's why I was so interested in this subject around babies and baby monitors because to me becoming a parent felt universal like I was engaging in something ancient. Something humans have been doing literally since the beginning of humans. And here I was being presented with all of these new tools in which to do this thing that people have been doing forever. And what did that mean for me, for people like me for generations around us? (gentle music) - I think all of this technology raises the question, are we giving up something meaningful, something superhuman, something very us when we engage with it, when we turn to it, when we outsource decisions to it. And I see with the growth of these technologies, with the ambitions of these companies, these are questions that we will all be grappling with increasingly in the future. (gentle music) - SEPNA MASHWARI, thank you so much for joining us. - Thanks for having me. (gentle music) - You can read more from SEPNA MASHWARI and all of our business reporters on the New York Times app. If you don't already have the app, we wanted to let you know that if you download it right now, you'll get access to all of our journalism free for one month. So give it a try. (gentle music) We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. President Trump told the UN General Assembly in New York that he had a decision to make on Iran. To strike a deal with Iran or quote, annihilate the Islamic Republic. - Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? - His threat amid a defense of the war he launched alongside Israel in February came as allies have begun to openly question whether the United States remains a credible partner. (gentle music) And the Trump administration has ejected more than 750,000 people from the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces. Vice President J.D. Bantz announced on Tuesday, claiming that many were receiving premium subsidies. They did not qualify for. And that some people were not even real. - We're actually making sure that people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them. Amazingly, we weren't doing that before now. - The move is Bantz's latest attempt to rein in what he sees as fraud in the federal health care system. (gentle music) Today's episode was produced by Diana Wynne and Alex Stern with help from Ricky Novetsky and edited by Lisa Chau. It contains music by Marion Luzano, Rowan Nemisto and Dan Powell and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Wunderly. (gentle music) That's it for the daily, I'm Rachel Abrams, see you tomorrow.