Gone are the days of relying on newspaper announcements and word of mouth to spread the word about your new arrival - one in five parents send a picture of their newborn baby to friends and family within 10 minutes of the birth, with almost half (48%) of parents taking snaps of their bundle of joy within the hour.
Orange UK research, conducted among 1,000 new and expectant parents, highlights how pregnancy and birth announcements have evolved in the past 20 years, with many new parents capturing the first moments of the new born on their camera phones and even creating social networking sites for their treasured offspring before they are born.
Over one in five parents (21%) have created a dedicated or social networking profile for their baby - that's over 57,000 babies with their own Facebook, MySpace or Bebo page.
Paul Burns, Head of Multimedia from Orange, commented; "The birth of a new baby is a life-changing event, so wanting to capture the moment and sharing it with friends and family as soon as possible is only natural. We'd urge fathers against filling the hospital bag with lenses, filters and flashguns - your camera phone should more than suffice - just make sure you wait until you're outside before you send it."
According to the research, it's not just newborns being 'snapped'. One in seven (14%) parents have sent pictures of their unborn baby's ultrasound scan via their mobile or email - which means over 100,000 babies every year are seen by friends and family before they're even born.
However, tradition remains strong when it comes to the first people to call - 85% of people speak to the parents and parents-in-law before anyone else.
--
There may be a slight irony in that Orange commissioned this research - as it was T-Mobile which famously launched their MMS service in the UK with a hugely popular advert based about a parent sharing a photo of his baby with people via MMS - to music by Royksopp.
Posted to the site on 27th February 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/29582.php