Three months ago, my wife, Chrysta, and I were driving along Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles when she let out a harrowing cry.三个月前，我和妻子克里斯塔(Chrysta)驾车在洛杉矶梅尔罗斯大道(Melrose Avenue)上行经时，她忽然开始伤痛地哭叫。I knew exactly what to do: I reached for my iPhone and pressed the bright green “Start” button on the screen and continued to drive as I waited for her to stop wailing.我确切地告诉自己该怎么做：拿着iPhone，按下屏幕上鲜绿色的“开始”键，之后驾车，直到在她暂停大哭号时按下“完结”键。The app I was using is called Full Term, which kept track of the length and intervals of her contractions. The app was, as my wife and I learned while rushing to the hospital for the birth of our first child, more useful than we could have ever imagined.当时我用的应用程序是Full Term，用来记录宫缩的持续时间和间隔时间。

它比我们想象的简单得多。我们是在赶往医院生第一个孩子时获知这个应用程序的。I should preface this by saying that before we downloaded the app (a last-minute recommendation from a friend when I texted: “OMG! We’re in labor!”), I had scoffed at all these baby and pregnancy tools. After all, people have been having babies without apps since the dawn of humanity. Why do we need them now?我必需再行解释一下，在iTunes这个应用程序（在我给一位朋友发短信说道：“天哪！孩子将要生子了！”之后，这位朋友在最后关头给我们引荐了这个应用程序）之前，我常常取笑这些婴儿和分娩工具。却是，从人类经常出现起，没应用程序人们不再不仍然在生孩子吗？为什么现在就必须了呢？Turns out, I was wrong.结果证明，我之前的点子是错的。

When my wife went into labor, for example, we could have tracked it the old-fashioned way: get a stopwatch, a pen and piece of paper, then jot down the duration of each contraction, and the time in between, and then somehow convey that information to our doctor while my wife endures the most intense pain of her life.比如，妻子将要怀孕时，我们本可以用传统方式展开记录：拿一个秒表、一支笔和一张纸，记下每次宫缩的持续时间和间隔时间，然后在我妻子忍受着生命中最轻微的疼痛之时，把这些信息以某种方式发给医生。Or, we could open Full Term (a free app, though $1 donations are welcome) and press a green button to start, and a red one to stop. It gives you a detailed graph of the overall length and how far apart the labor pains are, which I could then text to our doctor. (We later discovered that we showed up at the hospital a tad early, by about 10 hours.)或者，我们可以关上Full Term（免费的，不过青睐你捐献一美元），按绿色按钮开始，按红色按钮暂停。

它能分解一个详尽的图表，展出总时长和妊娠阵痛的间隔，我可以用短信把它发给医生（后来我们发现自己略为提早一点到了医院，提早了约十个小时）。In addition to the “go bag” that you pack for the hospital, you need a “go folder” of smartphone apps.除了打算带上去医院的“待产包在”，你还必须为智能手机上的应用程序辟一个“待产文件夹”。Pregnancy-related apps are not a niche category. According to a 2013 report by Citrix, a software company that tracks app usage, pregnancy-related apps were more popular than fitness apps. And at the Apple iTunes store, four of the top 10 paid medical apps are currently baby-related, including My Baby’s Beat, Baby Connect and Baby Heartbeats.与分娩涉及的应用程序仍然是一个小门类。

Citrix是一个跟踪应用程序用于情况的软件公司。根据它2013年的一份报告，与分娩涉及的应用于比健美应用于更加热门。在苹果的iTunes商店里，目前名列前十的收费医疗应用程序中有四个与婴儿涉及，还包括My Baby’s Beat、Baby Connect和Baby Heartbeats。

What do all these apps do? There are apps to help you get pregnant such as My Days and Glow, which help women track their ovulation and fertility. Others track the baby during pregnancy, including BabyBump and Baby Tracker. Still others track the birthing process, including My Birth Plan and Birthing Method. (There’s one for dads called the Guys Guide to the Delivery Room.)这些应用程序是做到什么用的？有协助你分娩的，比如My Days和Glow，它们协助女性记录受精和生育。还有记录分娩期间婴儿状况的，还包括BabyBump和Baby Tracker。还有记录怀孕过程的，还包括My Birth Plan和Birthing Method（还有一款给准爸爸的，叫Guys Guide to the Delivery Room）。

And there are hundreds to help parents after the baby is born.还有几百个应用程序是协助父母照料孩子的。Before I discovered Full Term, Chrysta downloaded My Pregnancy Today, which shows expectant mothers what’s happening in the womb week by week. (At 12 weeks, the app said, our baby was the size of a lime.)在我找到Full Term之前，克里斯塔iTunes了My Pregnancy Today，它能告诉他充满著期望的准妈妈子宫里每周再次发生的情况（12周的时候，那个应用程序说道，我们孩子的大小跟一颗酸橙差不多）。During labor, I found that the most useful app was WhatsApp, the messaging platform owned by Facebook. I added friends and family to a group thread, where I shared real-time updates, including audio of the baby’s heartbeat and photos of my wife looking as if she wanted to punch me in the face.怀孕期间，我找到最简单的应用程序是WhatsApp，它是Facebook的一个消息平台。

我把朋友和家人特到一个群里，我在那里动态共享近期情况，还包括胎儿的跳动音频和妻子的照片——她看上去看起来想要朝我脸上打一拳。When our son was finally born, weighing a whopping 8 pounds 5 ounces, we quickly realized we had no idea what we were doing. This is where the app Baby Tracker, $5, came in. You can use it to track how often your baby poops, how much the baby sleeps and, if you’re breast-feeding, how long you feed for. It can also keep track of which breast the baby last fed on, though my wife found it easier to put a rubber band on her wrist.孩子总算出生于了，是个8磅5盎司（约合7.5斤）的大胖儿子。不过，我们迅速找到，自己几乎不知所措。这时五美元的收费应用程序Baby Tracker登场了。

你可以用它来记录你的宝宝多久小便一次，睡觉了多长时间，如果是母乳喂养的话，喂了多长时间。它还能记录上次不吃的是哪一旁的乳房，虽然我妻子实在往喂过奶的那外侧手腕上套个橡皮筋更加便利。

While your baby’s bowel movements may not seem fascinating at first, you will have riveting conversations about it with your pediatrician. And when you consider that diapers are changed 10 to 12 times a day, that’s the contents of more than 80 diapers a week to keep track of — and to discuss.虽然刚开始宝宝的呕吐情况或许没什么意思，但是你将与儿科医生对它展开多次饶有兴趣的谈话。还有，你看看，纸尿裤一天要换10至12次，那一周就要记80多次，那也是必须辩论的内容。

Now that our son is 3 months old, the app we rely on most is Sound Sleeper, $4 (with a limited free version), which emulates a variety of white noises. Our baby likes to fall asleep to ocean waves, but when he has a meltdown, the only thing that seems to soothe him is the sound of a vacuum cleaner.现在，儿子三个月大了，我们最倚赖的应用程序是四美元（有一个功能受限的免费版）的Sound Sleeper，它能仿效各种红噪音。我们的宝宝讨厌听得着大海的波浪声入眠，但是当他情绪失控时，唯一能安抚他的或许是吸尘器的声音。Last week, we discovered a new app called the Wonder Weeks, based on the best-selling book by Frans X. Plooij and Hetty van de Rijt, that details the rapid changes taking place these first weeks of life, and why babies go through “fussy phases.”上周，我们找到一个新的应用于，名为the Wonder Weeks，它以弗兰斯·X·普鲁吉(Frans X. Plooij)和赫蒂·范·德·里特(Hetty van de Rijt)写出的畅销书为基础，详尽讲解生命前几周里婴儿的较慢变化，以及为什么婴儿不会经历“焦躁的阶段”。

But there’s one thing I want to make clear. By no means am I suggesting that we give babies iPhones. Many pediatricians, including mine, strongly advise against exposing newborns to the glowing screens of smartphones and tablets. I could not agree more.但是有一点我得说道确切。我决不是建议让婴儿看手机。很多儿科医生，还包括我的儿科医生，强烈建议不要让新生儿看强光的手机和平板电脑屏幕。

这一点我十分赞成。Babies are soaking up the world around them, and their little neurons and synapses are being formed each day. Simple shadows and colors can be overwhelming for some babies. The last thing we want to expose them to are super-bright screens with fast-moving graphics, Additionally, doctors warn that the blue light from screens can reduce melatonin levels, which affects sleep.婴儿在感觉周围的世界，他们小小的神经细胞和神经元每天都在构成。非常简单的阴影和色彩都有可能让有些婴儿难以承受。

我们最想让婴儿看见的就是有较慢移动图像的超亮屏幕。另外，医生警告说道，屏幕的蓝光不会减少荷尔蒙水平，影响睡眠中。

Speaking of sleep, I haven’t been able to find an app that helps with sleep deprivation. I’m pretty sure there’s a market for that app, especially among new parents.提及睡眠中，我没有寻找一款协助解决问题父母睡眠不足问题的应用于。我相信，那种应用于认同有市场，特别是在在新生儿父母中。

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