Meet our expert, Dr. Emily Hartwell
When I was still new in pediatrics, a father handed me a car seat and asked, half-joking, “If I install this wrong, will you tell me?” He wasn’t laughing — he was terrified. Parents are expected to master a thousand small details under crushing pressure, and products either lift that weight or add to it. Two decades of neonatal nursing gave me a front-row view of how small failures in gear can ripple into sleepless nights or dangerous outcomes.
I’ve seen swaddles that actually calmed colicky babies and monitors that failed when families needed them most. Sometimes the simplest bottle becomes the lifesaver, while the flashy “innovation” turns into an expensive mistake. Marketing rarely admits that.
On Choice Reviews, I cut through that noise. I look at a stroller and ask: can a parent fold this with one hand while juggling a squirming infant? I judge a diaper pail on whether it traps odor in a tiny apartment. Safety, usability, and sanity — those are the categories that matter.
Every review I write is haunted by that father with the car seat, staring at me like the future of his child depended on my answer. In a way, it did. That’s why I write the way I do now.
