Why You Can Trust CNET Baby got bass: Speakers for the unborn
Sounds Beginnings lets pregnant women wrap waterproof speakers in a fabric band around their bellies and play voices and music right into the womb.
Surrounding pregnant bellies with speakers isn't exactly new.
Earlier this year, I wrote about the Ritmo by Nuvo Group, an oddly named sound system through which unborn babies are subjected to the musical playlists of their supposedly fashionable mothers.
More recently, a new and improved fetus speaker system called Sound Beginnings hit the market, and while the idea of wrapping wombs in speakers may ring wrong to some, the company behind the device, Creative Baby, makes an interesting point: this is a surefire way for traveling or military partners to familiarize their unborn children with their voices.
The tech is simple. A phone and recording service called Sound Delivery enables friends and family to call a 1-800 number and record messages, which are in turn saved to the mother's account on the Sound Delivery Web site. Once those files are transferred over to the MP3 player of choice, the mother can plug the player into the speaker jack in the supposedly comfy fabric band and, with a headphone splitter, listen to the messages with the unborn child.
The question of safety remains, with the company claiming the decibel level is limited to a "safe level" for babies' ears, and that the speakers are encased in padded vinyl, which "almost eliminates harmful vibrations."
The company also points out that these recordings can be kept as keepsakes for the child to cherish at some unknown future point.
I have yet to be pregnant, and while this device has won a slew of awards, if I am expecting one day I might play it safe as well as save the $49.95 it costs through Amazon, and instead talk to and/or record distant voices on Skype and let that sound come through my desktop speakers for the baby to hear both live and at some unknown future point.
Call me old-fashioned.