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Comment by fabiandesimone | Hacker News Reader

Just make sure something like this does not happen:

"9 – BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!” or “Babys heart beat starts today” ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site was about 95% completed (about a 1500$ investment). Then a very close friend of the family had a miscarriage about 15 weeks into her pregnancy and told us about how she had signed up for all these baby websites and now they keep emailing her stuff and she breaks down and cries every time…. I just wanted no part of that…"

http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/09/04/my-top-10-worst-ideas-to...

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I'm posting this on a throw away account, not my regular user name for obvious reasons.

I used to work for one of these baby companies. It was an interesting challenge coding wise due to the large volume of data they dealt with.

When I first joined what they didn't tell me is that all e-mails about miscarriages and deceased babies would be forwarded to my work inbox. It was then my job to add the flag to the user's account on the database, that way the marketing e-mails and so on would stop. Users could do this themselves, but often they wouldn't find the menu option to do so as it's hidden away, and it's harder to find when you're stressed, so instead they e-mailed us. What shocked me was the sheer volume of e-mails like this I had to deal with from understandably distraught users.

What's worse is that sometimes you'd get an e-mail from a mother who has given birth to a still-born baby or had a baby with SIDS, asking for things like a specialist photographer, or other service who can provide the sensitivity and care they require.

When you here statistics like this it's one thing, but to get e-mails from people, knowing each one relates to a real deceased infant every day it slowly wears you down.

That's one job that haunts me when I least expect it. A lot more people have miscarriages than I first expected.

That's awful. Babylist has a settings tab with a big delete button for that reason.

There are currently successful services like that. I really don't think that's that big of a deal. There are triggers for that sort of thing everywhere; clothes you bought already, other people's babies, etc.

It's a valid concern. I think they can have a workaround this problem by offering a discount on say diapers or some kind of other fringe benefit to parents confirming the birth.

There are currently successful services like that. I really don't think that's that big a deal. There are triggers for that sort of thing everywhere; clothes you bought already, other people's babies, etc.

There wasnt an unsubscribe?

I understand how that can make one feel - but I dont think that focusing on miscarriage or SIDS is the right perspective.

I think (understandably) no prospective parent, upon losing their baby for any reason, is going to have "oh yeah, cancel those website reminders" at the forefront of their minds. Certainly, all it would take is probably the first email from one of them to arrive, but subscribing after the fact doesn't un-kick you in the teeth.

do parents that just lost their baby have checking e-mail high on their agenda?

Considering the 15 people who are going to be sending condolances letters once it hits the rumor mill? yep.

kids these days... a quick call from my parents and in-laws would have been enough for us...

Of course I agree with you - but is that chance that one of the subscribers to your service losing their child reason enough for you to NOT create the functions described?

That was my point. I have a 6-year old and a baby currently loading with delivery in July. I also have a very dear friend who lost her second child to SIDS.

We are getting the "Your baby is currently the size of an avocado" emails -- We like the service.

The fear of a customer of such service's potential pain, while real and however small, shouldn't deter the availability of the service.

You're thinking of it from the perspective of a single user, in which case the chance of miscarriage is relatively small. However, if you think of it from the perspective of the entire user base, then the likelihood that someone who receives an avocado email suffered a miscarriage is close to 1.

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