A child was crying in the exam room across the hall. Crying loudly and long.   The patient I was seeing started to look a little worried and her mother said she hoped that the child was not hurt too badly.  But, having heard lots of different cries, I knew that child was not in pain.  That was the cry of a 6 month old who was complaining about being undressed and weighed.

A new app in the iPhone store is “Cry Translator”.  Evidently, you hold it new a crying baby/child and it will tell you why the child is crying within 5 categories (hungry, sleepy, annoyed, stressed or bored).  This is a bit like Shazam telling you the name of a song on the radio.  As  bonus, the app also gives you suggestions about what to do about the crying.

There is some science behind this.  Babies’ cries have commonalities across countries and cultures.   And the cry of a child in pain is quite different from a child who is mad.  Parents learn the language of their own child’s cry by 4-5 weeks old.  Will an iPhone app help this along?  I doubt it. 

I’d try it out, but it’s pricey and I already know what the cries mean.