BabyPlus Prenatal Education System
BabyPlus is a prenatal education system that offers audio-based lessons to babies in utero to help with their cognitive development once they are born. The included instructional booklet and website claim that babies who experienced this system while in utero are more interactive and responsive once they are born, nurse better, and show an increased ability to self-soothe. It also claims that those babies tend to reach developmental milestones earlier and later in life, demonstrating improved school readiness. We could not independently verify these claims during our testing cycle as none of the pregnant testers gave birth during the two months. What we can share are the comments from those soon-to-be-moms. BabyPlus includes 16 different “lessons,” and its recommended usage time is 1 hour per day. A formula contained in the instruction manual helps determine how many days you will play each lesson based on how far along in your pregnancy you are. Each lesson is a sound pattern meant to mimic the mother’s heartbeat. The earlier lessons sound more like a simple drum, while the later ones are more advanced and more rhythmic. The unit itself is pretty compact and easy to install and replace the batteries on the its backside. There is only a single power/control button and a simple LCD screen to show the unit’s level, which testers appreciated. Once you have selected the lesson to play, it easily slips into the provided pouch and attaches around the belly. It is like a small fanny pack but built to fit a pregnant belly. Reviewers found the pouch to be well-constructed. The band around the waist was much more comfortable than they expected. The belt pieces are adjustable, plus it has elastic, so it will fit bellies of any size. The device itself has small clips on the back that slide onto the belt so you can easily be up and moving while using the device. No need to sit still for an entire hour. Tester’s overall opinion was that using something like this certainly couldn’t hurt since it mimics the sounds the baby is already hearing in utero. There was some pushback at the $200 price tag. That amount struck many as a lot of money to spend on something when you don’t actually know if you’ll get results for years to come.