Belly Armor: tinfoil hats for the expectant mother | Hacker News Reader

Belly Armor: tinfoil hats for the expectant mother

bellyarmor.com

22 pointssoyelmango23 comments

$59 could also buy folic acid, vitamin d3 and choline capsules.

There's a simple exercise you can do in the final weeks of pregnancy to encourage your baby to lie in the optimal position for childbirth (which is ofc free to view, but, amazingly, isn't widely put into practice, I understand).

http://www.bloomingbellys.com/bb-blog/optimal-fetal-position...

Ridiculous.

If your cellphone is in your pocket, you're not protected from these perceived risks, if the radiation is coming from behind you, you're not protected either.

It's this kind of scaremongering that drives me insane. Expectant mothers are under enough stress as it is without some pointless product telling them they are being attacked by vicious radiation on a daily basis despite their own admission that there is little to no evidence to prove that it is potentially harmful.

It's not just EM waves. Billions of sub-atomic neutrinos pass through your unborn baby's body and yet no research has been done to show these are safe.

My special neutrino proof baby wear (made from only natural recycled neutron star cores) will screen out (or about as much as this blocks 10Mhz RF) of this potentially dangerous radiation.

As a bonus the curvature of the light around the super massive corset will also make you look thinner!

Given that they are not specific about what materials they use I can't help but wonder if they are just selling expensive organic cotton clothes labeled as baby protection.

My thoughts exactly.

How do Belly Armor products work? Without getting too deep into the details...

Indulge me, go into the details.

I was even more amused by the nonsensical explanation they give after that phrase. Apparently their Faraday cage blanket works "similar to how noise canceling headphones work with sound waves or how a grounding wire neutralizes an electric current."

So apparently their Farady cages work like two completely different physical phenomena, neither of which is anything like a Faraday cage. I'm also amused by the fact that if it really works like noise cancelling headphones, belly armor actually emits radiation!

This press release says their "RadiaShield Technology" is silver. So at least it does what it says, even if what it says it does is ridiculous. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/09/prweb4511834.htm

I have to wonder if this product is cynically designed to exploit people who do not understand basic scientific reasoning. See: http://www.bellyarmor.com/radiation/health-risks/autism

> I have to wonder if this product is cynically designed to exploit people who do not understand basic scientific reasoning.

You have to wonder? I have no doubt at all that that's the case. This product has SCAM written all over it.

Yes, I have to wonder. Because it's also possible the people behind this believe in it, and are also incapable of basic scientific reasoning.

It often strikes me that for people that have no reasonable science education the world must seems like an extremely random, unpredictable and mysterious place without cause and consequence.

"My God, what must it be like in your funny little brains? It must be so... boring." -Sherlock (BBC)

People in general seem to have a weak understanding of electromagnetism, and they vacillate between ignoring it and fearing it. I have friends who will turn on a radio and listen to their favorite station and they were unaware that the radio waves going to their radio were also hitting them. When I explained this to them, they seem surprised. I wasn't able to quite explain to them that an AM radio wave coming from several miles away was extremely weak and extremely unlikely to ever do them any damage.

Also light is a radioactive wave. Or if they are sitting in front of a camping fire, they enjoy the waves.

Oops. Electromagnetic wave..

Snarky comments were running through my mind, but I credit them for being reasonably up front about the uncertainty of radiation risks. The first item under under Radiation -> Health Risks starts with:

  What is the impact of everyday radiation during pregnancy?  
  Today, the evidence remains mixed.

Edit: After further reading I agree with the comments below. There's no real balance here.

Yes, remarkably understated compared to scaremongering stories. Though still quite overstated compared to the evidence.

That's not "reasonably up front." The word "mixed" implies the evidence is relatively even on both sides. Reasonably up front would be "while the evidence is mixed, there is no compelling evidence to conclude the risks are significant."

The answer "the evidence remains mixed" can be applied to just about any question. It has no actual information. Notice they don't also provide the other side of the mixture.

Good point. However, the balance of the text is more alarmist than rational.

I suspect that the target market is unlikely to read the text closely enough to distinguish, for example, between correlation and causation ( http://www.bellyarmor.com/radiation/health-risks/autism - note the graph correlating cellphone subscribers and autism case).

And while I might want to credit them with presenting technical information and research, this is more likely intended to obsfuscate and alarm with scientific/statistical terms than to clarify...

Let's see; http://www.bellyarmor.com/faqs

"How do Belly Armor products work?

Without getting too deep into the details, RadiaShield® fabric shields against everyday radiation by neutralizing incoming electromagnetic waves - similar to how noise canceling headphones work with sound waves or how a grounding wire neutralizes an electric current."

No, noise cancelling is active - Belly Armor doesn't emit opposite phase radiation to cancel the radiation. No, a grounding wire grounds an electric current to the ground - Belly Armor isn't grounded.

However, if at some point in the future, significant correlations are proved, I'll eat my cynicism and hat.

I would only eat my hat, if they proved causation.

Ooof... that's what I meant!

The description also does an excellent job of mixing scary statements about ionizing radiation (which you are not likely to encounter) and low-frequency RF, which is all over the place. It's like arguing that wrecking balls could destroy your house, and it's therefore unsafe to play at lawn bowling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTXqHZiDcR0

Read the comments. One born every minute, so to speak :)

Brilliant idea!

I can so see women buying these to compensate for their inability to even temporarily give up Cosmopolitans and Margaritas.

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