Disembodied hands to keep infant feeling secure
Behold the Zaky Infact Pillow. "Zaky -- It's Like Leaving a Part of You with Your Baby." It's $38.95 at the Pregnancy Store.
LinkThe Zaky is also great when you have to leave your baby with someone else -- at your baby’s daycare facility, when he stays with a babysitter, or goes to visit his grandparents. The Zaky will provide a constant and familiar support giving your baby a sense of security. The Zaky also assists the caregivers on positioning your baby and your baby will feel and smell mom.
If you haven’t given birth yet, the Zaky is great to bring to the hospital when your baby is born. Scent it with your own scent beforehand to help your baby when he/she is in the bassinet next to you or give it to the nurse when your baby is taken to the hospital’s nursery. This way you give your baby “your hand” with your scent, and the nurse can use it to support and position your baby. Also, because your baby smells and feels something constant from birth, the Zaky helps the transition to going home.
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This should hold'em until they learn to operate the TV remote
What creeps me out most is wondering how you "Scent it with your own scent".
I mean, I know how animals leave their scent on things...
I've got to hand it to them. They know how to palm off a good idea.
Hold on, Dead Robot... don't think we're going to knuckle under your pun assault without giving you the finger.
>> Scent it with your own scent beforehand
*ahem*... you don't gotta pee on it first do you? :o\
This thing has "years of therapy" written all over it. Or, at the very least, a mild case of amputee fetish.
Good way to ensure your child becomes a serial killer that keeps hands as trophies.
THEY SMELL LIKE MOM!!!
Did anybody see the optional cuddly entrails? Won't baby serial killer just love them!
As a dad with kids, one who's just 18 months old, I'd say it's a wacky idea. I've never met a kid of insecure as to need this, but then again, it's all the Parent's who are freaking on seeing this, right?
Infant won't care a damm, just that it's familiar and confortable, like my 18 month old and the Taggy blanket they sleep with every night.
I gotta hand it to those of you who have been punning...
Much of the trauma I've suffered in my life was caused by a lack of "Zaky Infact Pillow"
On the more serious side...promoting such a lame idea can be dangerous to new parents. For those who know, bringing a newborn home is akin, at times, to a shift at the emergency room. The decisions you make under stressful conditions determines whether 'things' (i.e., screaming baby and at least one parent losing her/his mind) escalate or not. And while I am no expert, I am pretty confident using such a contraption is useless.
Why? Because human baby's are (one of?) the only mammals who are born in 3 terms instead of 4. Most mammals stay in term until they are pretty much ready to walk. This is necessary in order for them to have, at least, a fighting chance against their prey.
But humans evolved more brains than braun and hence our heads grew over evolutionary time. Eventually there was a problem - we could no longer fit through our Mother's birth canals. Solution: eliminate term 4. Which totally works because, well, we are on top of the food chain.
But the need for the 4th term is not totally lost. In fact, newborns still like it somewhat 'womblike' - tightly wrapped and warm. If you really want to comfort your newborn - learn to fold a blanket and swaddle. It works miracles.
These hands look cool, but don't consider them a vital parenting tool.
Darn, If only this was around before I chopped my hands off for my baby's pillow.
I dunno. I used to babysit my nephew who would not sleep unless you were touching him. So after a while I realized I could just put a pillow on his back and he was good for the night. I realize that he could have been trained to sleep without the touch but he wasn't my kid and he has since outgrown this. the hand part is creepy but the concept is sound.
Very.Worst.Part:
At the website, you can order them in *blue*. Two dead, blue muppet-hands that smell like mom.
Back when we were taking social psych 101 in college my friend and I used to joke about the wire-mommy vs. cloth-mommy experiments once done on young monkeys, and how someone would eventually come out with versions for human children.
Like if your kids went to summer camp and missed their mom, you could rent a cloth-mommy to help them cope with the homesickness. Parents were too poor to afford a cloth-mommy could rent their kids the cheaper wire-mommy for their children to cling to instead.
Yes, we realized even then it was a pretty sad and disturbing joke, the very idea still makes me cringe inwardly. And I'm sure the intent behind these hands is certainly not callous (no pun intended, honestly), parents might need some time to rest away from their infant after all. But any hint of an artificial surrogate for human contact available for purchase always brings the idea to mind.
The Zaky can help calm your baby and help your baby sleep better through the night. Of course, if your baby wakes up, rolls slightly and discovers that Mom or Dad's hands are actually a pair of huge disembodied pillow hands ... well, sweet dreams!
I don't think that baby is old enough to have been put down on his side, and even if he is, having a pillow there to prevent him rolling over onto his back seems dangerous.
2008: Popularity of Zaky product soars. Sales astronomical.
2015: Theatrical rerelease of classic horror film "The Voice On The Wire" scares seven-year-olds half to death with graphic depictions of disembodied hand.
2023: Amputee porn enjoys inexplicable vogue in popular culture.
Somnambule, where on the site did you find the blue hands?
PeterK, it's already happening. They're selling families life-size cardboard cutout pictures of parents who're deployed overseas.
"Thing? Is that you, old man?"
snap, snap.
Ah, just what a new baby needs: the feeling of being loved and held by cold, dead, disembodied hands.
I`ve only seen these really recommended for use with premature infants. You can`t really hold them if they`re in an incubator. The doctors often recommend finding something that provides some sensation of being held that will give the baby comfort of some sort. Having it smell like a parent when everything else smells of hospital is certainly a bonus.
For a normal infant, at home, it makes no sense to me and is just creepy. For a baby in the hospital, I can sort of see it having it`s use. Less stress can mean survival for a preemie. But at home - just hold the baby.
They should be redisigned so you can plug them in to warm up...ang perhaps lightly knead.
I am so glad I am not a parent, and therefore not in the crosshair of marketers rabid enough to try to sell me something like this.
if Harper's Weekly was about boingboing instead:
After yakuza-ninjas killed her family and amputated her hand, a Japanese schoolgirl replaced the stump with a machine gun, hunted them down and killed them, while in the US plush disembodied hands were offered for sale as infant comforters.
Those of you who are suggesting that some babies, in fact, need a touch to feel comfortable have really NAILED it. As a parent, I find this both creepy and intriguing. But the puns are out of HAND.
From the website, it was originally developed for preemies. There is a decent FAQ on there that has some history and even a study link or two.
I can't find a decent link (though this one has some good summaries and links to data: http://www.prematurity.org/baby/comforting-touch2.html) but preemies need lots more touch and comforting than they generally get (at least in most places in the US). The summary on the page I linked said that "gentle touch" calms preemies in most cases, and in most cases has no negative effects. Even if it doesn't "smell like Mom" the touch alone can help.
As with any parenting aid, it should only be used as an aid, not a substitute for parental involvement. In the case of preemies, it is one of the few "tested and approved" things that can be put into the incubator with the infant. Very much a substitute for parental involvement, but the parents can't do anything if the infant is too fragile to come out of the incubator yet. This is something, at least. Add it with a "rocking" incubator (can't find a link, but it's related to that "cloth mommy/wire mommy" thing that PeterK alluded to. You can find that study - or at least abstracts about it - online. It is very disturbing to read. They found that with monkeys, being held and rocked by "mommy" was more important than food to the baby monkey.
Sure, it looks creepy: I suspect something a little less "hand-like" in form would be far less creepy to us adults (search the web for the Uncanny Valley in robotics for reasons) but I suspect the manufacturers wanted to simulate parental contact as well as possible. Reading the website where it is offered lists a lot of information about it - the FAQ is quite good.
As for how you "put Mom's scent on it" that's pretty easy: have Mom hug it like a teddy bear while she sleeps. The FAQ even points it out.
Gotta go back to work...
later,
-cajun
elver: This thing has "years of therapy" written all over it. Or, at the very least, a mild case of amputee fetish.
No, but I think a hand fetish (like the classic foot fetish) might be plausible. After all, babies start recognizing faces very young... but what if there's no face there? On the other hand (so to speak), it's probably a lot less damaging than using the boob tube as a babysitter. Worst case, hand kissing becomes a lot more popular again (and a bit more creepy).
We bought these as a baby shower gift for first-time parent friends of ours. They were hands down the hit of the party. The gift opening stalled for a good 20min while all sorts of inappropriate and very funny acts were performed with the Zakys. I seriously doubt they were ever used for their intended purpose after that.