A parent's worst nightmare is to see their child pass before they do. An even worse nightmare for a parent is the realization that they were responsible for the death of their child, whether intentional or not. The most precious and greatest responsibility for a parent is the well being of their children.
Imagine thinking you did everything you were suppose to do on a typical day, only to receive a terrifying phone call telling you your child was never checked in to their daycare in the morning. It was your responsibility to drop he or she off. You are an excellent parent so the first thought in your mind is that this has to be a mistake, then an even more stressful thought is someone at the daycare lost sight of her, and then your mind starts to really race to the worst thought imaginable: someone took my child without my permission. The last thing on your mind is you were responsible for your child missing.
This is what happened to Karen Osorio when her husband went to pick up their child from day care. She ran to her car and realized she left her child in the car for 9 1/2 hours with the windows up while she went in to her office at work. Unfortunately, her daughter died from heat stroke. The tragedy sparked a fire in this mother to help prevent this type of incident from happening to another family.
Vehicular heatstroke is the cause of death for about 40 children a year. Ms. Osorio started a campaign with her employer's company, P&G Pampers, called "Bag in the Back" to help busy mothers remember to put something they routinely and essentially need for their day in the back seat of their car next to there child. Also, baby supply companies are developing products help prevent this tragedy, such as, Cybex's Sirona M car seat which includes a sensor that alerts drivers to a child strapped in the back seat.
I feel that this type of accident always opens up a parent to extreme criticism and scrutiny, but humans are so prone to making innocent mistakes that are often not careless. The mind of a person can overwork itself and you simply malfunction, much like a computer. Unfortunately, that malfunction sometimes results in the worst type of accidents. I equate this to someone who is extremely tired and drives off the road. They weren't under any influential substance, their brain simply didn't function properly. I can only imagine the amount of stress a mother, a woman who is dedicated fully to their child and has a career, might have on a day to day basis. Where there is a problem, someone steps up to find a solution. The solution is to create new products for parents to help alert them to safely care for their child because sometimes parental intuition and instinct isn't enough and shouldn't be dependent on.
-Roxanne Cepeda
https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-a-mothers-tragedy-a-call-to-action-1525274572
The newborn/infant care industry is rapidly growing with the increase in technology and the launch of new products to help prevent injury and death to young children. These products practically sell themselves because though they are new unsought items, the desire to give your child all the best to keep them safe and healthy is enough incentive for parents or caretakers to try the products.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that comes to mind is the high price that parents are willing to pay for these new items. It is up to the company to make benefits clear and convince final customers that there is no substitute to this product to justify the cost. Differentiation is one method of persuading customers that their product is better than others
Working as a nanny has opened my eyes to how mothers feel when their child is harmed. The kids that I take care of aren't young enough to be needing these kinds of car seats but they seem as they will have a great outcome in sales. Though i'd expect prices to be very high on these, in all honesty I strongly believe moms will pay anything that will seem to be able to help in taking care of their kids.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately these things do happen. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to be a parent having to constantly worry and multi-task. It's great that products like these are being released and one may be fooled to think that these things don't happen when in actuality they do. It's great that this type of industry is taking note and making lives of parents easier.
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