Digital health tools to support parents with parent-infant sleep and mental well-being
Helen L. Ball, Alice-Amber Keegan
Abstract
Millennial parents (individuals born between 1981 and 1996 1 ) who have grown up alongside the digital age and who are now becoming parents are increasingly and consciously using digital tools to support night-time parenting. Offering new and seductive solutions to the longstanding stressors of new parenthood such as sleep deprivation, work-life balance, and meeting familial/social expectations, digital parenting tools are now ubiquitous. Given their potential to influence attitudes and practices about normal and safe infant sleep, it is vital that the application of digital tools to night-time infant care is carefully appraised. In this commentary we critically evaluate the types of digital health tools available to new parents and offer an anthropologically informed view of the positive and negative aspects of their use.