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Comment by nervousvarun | Hacker News Reader

As others have said this is a problem that in 2017 should already be solved by technology.

But in the event you don't have access to a technological solution try this: If you have an infant in your car get in the habit of taking your shoes off and putting them next to the baby when you drive. When you reach your destination you might forget the infant...but you won't forget your shoes.

Edit: My dad (who was an absent-minded engineer way before I was) taught me this trick.

Edit 2: Just called my dad to remind him about this and he said "it was only one shoe...the one you don't use on the pedal". I've been doing it wrong all this time :). So the correct way is...put your non-pedal shoe next to your child. You'll remember it when you start walking :)

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That's definitely an interesting method. I'm always surprised that I don't see more people relying on checklists in day to day tasks. I use checklists religiously at work and have incorporated them into my daily life as well. I have a number of friends who are constantly leaving things behind(cellphones, wallets, house/car keys), I don't think I'm any less of a naturally forgetful person than them, but because I use simple checklists I rarely forget things compared to them, even when I'm exhausted or stressed out.

Whenever I babysit my two young nieces I now just add an extra step to my checklists; don't forget kids in car.

When the Navy introduced the NATOPS[0] program, including pilot checklists, aircraft mishaps decreased significantly.

The introductory statement:

NATOPS is a positive approach toward improving combat readiness and achieving a substantial reduction in the aircraft accident rate. Standardization, based on professional knowledge and experience, provides the basis for development of an efficient and sound operational procedure. The standardization program is not planned to stifle individual initiative, but rather to aid the commanding officer in increasing the unit’s combat potential without reducing command prestige or responsibility.

There is significant research that when hospitals required surgeons to use checklists, surgical errors decreased significantly.[1]

Some friends who are NATOPS qualified pilots actually do have NATOPS-style checklists for parenting their kids, for both routine and non-routine/emergency tasks.

e.g Check that the kid is not in the car as they exit.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATOPS

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0...

I have a bad habit of forgetting things at home when I leave in the morning. I developed a habit: “Wallet, keys, badge, smokes, phone” I pat the pocket each item should be in as I say it out loud.

Unfortunately, I now do this on auto-pilot. I pat the pocket, say the word, leave the house... and realize I don’t have my badge on me when I arrive at work.

I’m thinking about installing a card reader that locks me in the house if I don’t have my badge :)

I developed the habit of feeling each item instead of just patting the pocket. That way, if the item is missing you won't be able to complete the action.

On the other hand, I've found that I now have the problem that if there's an item that's supposed to be missing (for example if I've lent my keys to someone) I have a constant low-grade panic where I keep checking my pockets, realizing there's something missing, reminding myself that it's supposed to be, and then doing the whole thing over again a few minutes later.

That's how I do the same thing, and I have the same problem.

On Japanese trains, staff use a system called "pointing checking" where you point and say the name of the thing to check that it's been done.

The verbal confirmation seems to help avoid actions becoming automatic.

You just need to mandate actual physical contact with the item in question. I won't let my apartment door close until I've jingled my keys in my pocket, has never failed me.

I like this thread. My people are here.

My atheist grandfather taught me the sign of the cross for this reason - "Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and keys."

For those who tend not to forget their testicles, just patting the pockets where you store the wallet and keys works for me. I think of it in terms of a number - day to day, it's three: phone, wallet, keys.

Out of curiosity, what system do you use for recalling / going through your checklists?

Depending on the situation it's a combination of to-do list programs on my phone and computer, I personally use both Google Keep and Todoist, and physical checklists that I either type out and print or hand write.

For the most important checklists, especially at work, I will usually hand write them in addition to using a computer. I'm a stickler for good penmanship and I find that taking the time to make an outline of my checklist and then transposing it to a handwritten pad involves a kind of deliberateness that is both somewhat relaxing and helps insure that I've covered all my bases, while only adding a few minutes to my day.

Less important things may start off as a physical checklist but then once they become second nature enough I just rely on memory. But again, for things where mistakes would result in something more than a minor inconvenience I still use physical checklists. The beauty of these checklists for me is that instead of having to remember 5,10,20 or 50 individual things, I just need to remember one thing, that is to check the checklist.

Eh, most countries don't have a non-pedal shoe - we use the other to operate the clutch :)

I drive barefoot, problem solved!

As horrible as this form of death is, it seems statistically unlikely. I'd wager that there are orders of magnitude between child deaths in cars due to heat and child deaths in cars due to crashes.

As such, I don't think an app for this makes sense. I don't think this ranks when looking at the numbers. That said, this must be amongst the worst ways of losing a child, and that is saying something.

> I'd wager that there are orders of magnitude between child deaths in cars due to heat and child deaths in cars due to crashes.

Don't just calculate the risks, also calculate the ratio of mitigated-risk-to-cost. Lowering the risk of death in traffic [1], after a certain extent of due diligence, can be very costly or impossible (don't go to work/preschool anymore). Lowering the risk of heat death, as GP describes, seems rather trivial - so there's no reason not to do it.

[1] which is quite high btw, I completely agree on that point. In an 80 year life in the US you're statistically going to die in a traffic accident with a probability of 0.85%. Almost 1 in 100 people die this way, so most people will know someone. For comparison, the same calculation for the UK (one of the lowest) comes out at 0.24%, so there's ways to go there for the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

I think you're thinking of this from a purely "statistical scope of the problem" perspective and underestimating the value of "emotional commitment of a parent for their children".

If there was an app (would require hardware...some sortof linkup with the child seat) I'd imagine if it was marketed right and there were studies supporting it's effectiveness you could charge an awful lot for it and virtually every parent would buy one. That's gotta be a substantial market. And it's a universal (global) problem.

Car seats are incredibly expensive (actually it's not just car seats...pretty much any 'technology' associated with infants).

Every parent wants peace of mind and I'd venture most would be willing to pay heavily for it.

Edit: On mobile and probably worded this poorly but TLDR: Parents aren't making rational decisions here w/ safety purchases for their kids. They'll spend a lot on something that eliminates a potential life-threatening issue...even if it's statistically rare.

> Car seats are incredibly expensive

Not in the US.

All carseats undergo strict testing under stringent regulations. While there are some real fancy seats out there, base level models ($50-100) range are safe.

More expensive seats have easier adjustments, easy to clean fabric, front/rear-facing modes, and other bells and whistles for parents.

For any first time parents in the US, I recommend picking up the latest copy of Baby Bargins (http://www.babybargains.com/). Lots of information about all the items you'll need for Baby, as well as safety ratings, and price considerations.

> Every parent wants peace of mind and I'd venture most would be willing to pay heavily for it.

That is very true. That's what gives rise to so-called SIDS motion monitors. Things that are supposed to alert you to an infant in distress, but in reality has not proven to decrease the risk of SIDS.

For anyone worried about SIDS I'd suggest looking into [1][2]. The counterarguments summed up in [3] seem rather weak to me. If the claim is true that in 10 years no parent following Sprott's method have had a case of SIDS (which no-one seemed to follow up on, even though the study seems quite solid to me), then the counter would have to explain why one should wait instead of just adopting that method. It seems a similar story to Beri-Beri in the Japanese Navy pre-WW2 - one doctor just went and found a cure in the field and everyone else just ignored it because his methods were not proven in a clinical study and because the cure required a change of traditional warrior behaviour.

[1] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13590840400016836

[2] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13590840400017875

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC500741/pdf/jcli...

Looks super quacky. US cot deaths have also massively declined, and the trajectory of the decline matches up with the uptake of back sleeping for infants.

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/15/137859024/rethinking-sids-many...

1.) SIDS still occurs at a rate of around 0.5 in 1000 in the Western world [1]. To compare, the probability of death in a traffic related accident over an 80 year lifespan is 0.85 in 1000 in the US. So it's still far from negligible.

2.) Sprott has at least a hypothesis to explain the correlation between back sleeping and decline in SIDS. His skeptics on the other hand have no explanation for why there is no confirmed case of SIDS for wrapped mattresses, other than it being a statistical fluke. That may be the case, but why is no-one investigating?

3.) Compare the SIDS rate of Japan and Asian Americans to Europe / European Americans. Why has it always been lower? Genetic prevalence? Bedding culture? It seems simple enough to do much more statistical studies on this, but when searching for it there seems to be a very low depth of knowledge.

To put it differently, what you're saying is quite close to "hey, we've figured out traffic related deaths, and it's all solved with safety belts and air bags, case closed, QED". Calling something quacky because of the journal is nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy. If someone's research stands on its own then it doesn't matter where it's published, it could as well be Arxiv - if not, then it should be easy enough to disprove based on facts.

[1] https://www.ncemch.org/suid-sids/statistics/

Honest question re 2): are there current confirmed cases of SIDS for back sleeping babies with no foreign objects in their crib? The NPR article I linked mentions that the current 0.5 rate is considered to be due to ignorance/non-compliance with safe sleeping policy.

At least I'm not aware of one. I find the amount of information on this topic overall quite thin. I get the feeling that prevention based medical research, without a background of commercialisation (i.e. drugs or treatments), isn't getting too much attention/funding overall, at least compared to its potential benefits.

Every time I see a picture online or in-person of a baby laying in a crib with a blanket, stuffed animal and a crib bumper I want to smack them. For as much as the rate of SIDS has declined, there is still many more parents out there who are ill-informed or ignorant about safe sleep of their child.

I have seen people spend money on these Angelcare monitors while doing one or more of the above, it's insane!

Interesting, but it concerns me that the first two citations are not in a very reputable journal:

Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine

In particular it's on this list:

http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecperiodic...

It also seems that the author of the first article is selling products to prevent SIDS, which is worrying.

Not saying it's without merit. But these things make me want to investigate further...

Good points. All I'd like is for a second independent study to (a) confirm that SIDS is indeed solved in NZ (i.e. it's not just some statistical fluke e.g. due to counting methods) and (b) figure out why it works. Whether it's that particular fungus or not I don't care, as long as the wrapping method works. Supporting evidence, e.g. about mattress handling, IMO lines up well with Sprott / Richardson and is unexplained by the skeptics - all in all I just don't like how quickly the medical establishment seems to have closed the books on this.

So, on further research it seems pretty clear that the mattress wrapping stuff is junk. Here's a decent study refuting it [1].

One key quote is "SIDS mortality has declined 63% from 1994 to 2004. The prevalence of plastic wrapped cot mattresses has remained constant since 1997. The decline in SIDS cannot be explained by changes in the proportion of plastic-wrapped mattresses."

The promotion of "mattress wrapping" coincided with an education campaign promoting other methods known to help reduce SIDS (like having babies sleep on their backs).

[1] Mitchell, Edwin. (2008). Wrapping a cot mattress in plastic does not explain the continuing fall in SIDS mortality. European journal of pediatrics. 167. 251-2. 10.1007/s00431-007-0526-8.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edwin_Mitchell/publicat...

I'm aware of that one and I don't think it explains everything if you pay closr attention.

They don't go further than taking a general population statistic and try to to infer from correlation that mattress wrapping is disproven. What happens if you actually have two groups, one using wrapping and one from the same demographics who don't? Sprott hypothesises that laying infants on their back will reduce SIDS thanks to less exposure to toxic gases from funghi consuming plastics. That causal link is unproven as it seems, but it gives an explanation for the numbers you quote that agrees with the results reported by Sprott / Richardson.

Reference 2 of that paper [1] describes such a study:

"We conclude that not only is there no evidence from this study of any identifiable increase in the risk of SIDS associated with the use of mattresses with an integral PVC cover, but also that the use of such mattresses is associated with a lower risk..."

[1] http://moscow.sci-hub.cc/e537c543e3d261c8c9ecf5b144267b15/bl...

Thank you, good find. It appears to me that there's two different subjects here. Richardson found a potential link between toxic gases from fungal growth. Sprott developed a (low cost) method using plastic wrapping to counter it, and has data to back it up. Your linked study says that plastic covers reduces the risk of SIDS. Well, it seems to me that these findings all agree if the fungal growth (within the loose stuffing material [1]) hypothesis is correct. I expect a plastic cover to somewhat shield from such gases since it would make them vent more to the sides. In Sprott's solution there's holes at the bottom of the wrapping such that the vent is also happening around the mattress rather than at the top.

One maybe crucial finding in your study that would not agree with Sprott/Richardson is the null result concerning the use of older mattresses. That one seems curious to me.

So here's my next question: Blair et al., Richardson as well as Sprott have data that the bedding has significant influence on SIDS risk. Why is there no mention of this in any national health advisory I can find? Why are there no follow-up studies and the medical community just settled on advising for back sleeping, even though it seems obvious that the risk can be mitigated further?

[1] It's noteworthy that Blair et al. did not distinguish about the stuffing material, which was a rather crucial point made by Richardson AFAIK. Both Richardson and Sprott have specific advise for what material should be used (pure cotton, no wool and PVC in the stuffing). Was that left out your linked study intentionally?

The plastic covers used in Blair et al. are 90% PVC covers. Richardson suggested PVC being digested by the fungus as the cause. So it's exactly the situation that should cause SIDS and it results in lower incidence of SIDS.

The mattress wrapping suggested by Sprott is wrapping using polythene.

So the results are totally incompatible with the notion that PVC mattresses causes SIDS as suggested by Richardson and Sprott.

There are other reports too, such as that conducted by the British government in 1998...

I don't know the American market, but from a Western European perspective that sounds hard to market right. Everyone thinks of mistakes as something other people make (as opposed to accidents, the selling point of good car seats). Nobody is going to think "hopefully I don't forget my child in the car", or at least won't buy anything that gives away that thought.

From the article:

"In 2000, Chris Edwards, Terry Mack and Edward Modlin began to work on just such a product after one of their colleagues, Kevin Shelton, accidentally left his 9-month-old son to die in the parking lot of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The inventors patented a device with weight sensors and a keychain alarm. Based on aerospace technology, it was easy to use; it was relatively cheap, and it worked.

"Janette Fennell had high hopes for this product: The dramatic narrative behind it, she felt, and the fact that it came from NASA, created a likelihood of widespread publicity and public acceptance.

"That was five years ago. The device still isn't on the shelves. The inventors could not find a commercial partner willing to manufacture it. One big problem was liability. If you made it, you could face enormous lawsuits if it malfunctioned and a child died. But another big problem was psychological: Marketing studies suggested it wouldn't sell well.

"The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them."

If there was an app, it might not require any integration at all - just a vibration or beep pattern with a notification every time I step out should be more than enough. If I have my child I'll ignore it the way I would any message, if I don't the distinctive pattern should be enough of a memory jog.

Don't really need a fancy app with hardware...could just send the following text every hour on the hour from let's say 7am to 5pm:

Is your child in your car?

The problem is, many of these parents think that they have dropped their child off at day care. Parents will either be constantly running out to their cars to check for their child, or will start ignoring these texts. It's basic human neurophysiology that we learn to mute meaningless data.

I like this technique, but sadly it's harder to implement if you have a manual transmission.

I don't see why you can't just drive with bare feet? That's how I usually drive, since I wear flip flops everywhere, and driving with flip flops is a bad idea.

If I'm wearing boots, I'll often drive with bare feet too, depending on the vehicle.

I learnt to drive in the UK without my shoes for better tactility. It helps.

I heard of a similar system (think it was from Mexico) of having a small teddy bear in the glove box, then put him up on the dash when you're driving with your infant in the back.

Why would you not correct your original statement instead of putting it in an edit footnote? Some people may not read that far and you are giving bad info.

Was on mobile and it was easier to just append to the end of the original post.

Can you be specific on what exactly is the "bad info" in my post?

I love this story so much

Seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

You're better off not driving at all and solve that minor risk as well as the more likely risk (automobile accidents are the #1 killer of children)[1]

1: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/pediatric/conditioni...

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