The Baby Soother

It's been tested! and not just once or twice but three hundred and twenty-four times in three ways.

1. Personal interviews with parents. Twenty-eight volunteer parents of fractious babies in the Avon/Somerset area in England, carried out the first test. Each volunteer used the tape for a minimum of one month and was then interviewed at home. Their findings were recorded and analyzed.

2. Impersonal interviews with parents. The next seventy-two parents who purchased tapes were sent a detailed questionnaire. These were returned and the results also carefully analyzed.

3. Tests in maternity hospitals. Three senior midwives in three different hospitals (independent of the founder and each other) tested the tape on restless babies. They did this for nine months and their findings were reported to us.

.... and what was found

Overall it was found that the "Baby Soother" worked. Playings to three hundred and twenty-four different babies over a period of almost a year had produced some astounding results.

Provided that the tape was started on baby during the first ten weeks of life crying stopped when it was played and usually the baby drifted into sleep. The average time taken to calm was 3.36 minutes and the tape continued to soothe for many months - over twelve in many cases.

Of the home tests, eighty percent of parents reported uninterrupted phenomenal success - while twenty percent reported odd occasions, usually associated with severe colic or illness, when the tape was less soporific than normal. Throughout these tests only ten complete failures were reported and these were all with babies over three months old when the tape was first tried. The babies tested in the maternity hospitals all stopped crying.

1. What is the frequency of the tape? (Meaning is it harmful?) Low to middle frequency much the same as a man's voice. Any harmful frequencies are below and above this tape which comes in a 60Khz and drops out at 8,000Khz.

2. Is it addictive? No. It can be played anytime, anywhere and under any circumstance. Some babies in the United Kingdom have used the tape for as long as 2-3 years, but they have eventually stopped in much the same way as an ordinary comforter.

3. Is it harmful in any way? Not to our knowledge. (Jeffrey the original "Baby Soother" baby and his sister, Joy, the children of Roger Wannell are healthy, happy children.) The "Baby Soother" was checked on a spectrum analyzer early on to make sure it was not doing damage to hearing or the brain. If it was harmful it would not soothe. Babies in pain do not settle down.

4. Why does it work? We do not know.

5. It sounds very noisy, why? Because a baby cries at 110dBs and to get the sound to him/her, it has to be heard.

6. What are the long term affects of this? As far as we know from England the effects are pleasing. Well adjusted children with happier relationships with parents. Most parents who recognize that they have a crying baby problem feel eased by having the "Baby Soother" thus relax knowing they have their last resort on hand. From not coping they go on to cope.

7. What is the failure rate? Very low. In England over 50,000 have been sold and only 12 have ever been sent back for refund on the grounds of ineffectiveness. Further research taking place at present indicates that the 90% success rate of the 1979/80 study is correct. Usually tapes break and the plea is for an instant replacement because the parents cannot live without it.