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The market for baby products and services has ballooned in recent years, but there is little evidence that high-tech toys and professional parenting consultants are necessary to raise a successful child.

Actually, overly competitive parents who empty their bank accounts attempting to give their offspring an edge over other children might be doing them more harm than good.

In her new book Parenting, Inc., journalist Pamela Paul explains just how ludicrous today's infant product marketplace has become. We have baby-wipe warmers and thousand-dollar strollers. High end designers such as Calvin Klein offer children's underwear. Tommy Hilfiger sells infant undershirts and Burberry has a denim diaper bag that's all the rage. Parents, meanwhile, enrol their well-dressed little ones in programs designed to improve their spatial relations and gross motor skills, whatever those are.

Why are today's parents so eager to pay for the latest baby gizmo or fad service? One reason, some experts claim, is guilt. In most modern families, both parents work -- and are working longer hours than ever before. Although they may not realize it, parents may be buying their children the latest-and-greatest to compensate for spending less time with them. Also, savvy marketers are exploiting parents' fears that their children are falling behind their peers physically or intellectually, or that their babies' very lives are at risk unless they buy the latest safety devices.

It is easier for parents to rationalize spending money on their children rather than themselves. In fact, some parents constantly worry that they aren't spending as much as other parents, which they believe puts their children at a disadvantage. Ms. Paul refers to this as the "anxiety of under-spending."

Our obsession with celebrities may also be driving baby product sales. At www.celebrity-babies.com, anyone can find out which designer made the $3,000 shoes worn by Suri Cruise (daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes), or which stroller is preferred by Angelina Jolie (Stokke XPlory, $1,059). Increasingly, psychologists claim, children are learning brand identification at a very young age.

Of course, not all of the baby gear available today is overpriced or overrated. Take car seats, for example. Although some resemble pint-sized thrones, car seats have in recent years become more sophisticated and more effective. Studies have shown that, when properly installed, they save children's lives. But when parents start shelling out $400 for devices that record conversations with their toddlers, and then download those conversations to a computer equipped with special software to evaluate verbal performance, it makes you wonder if people will soon need master's degrees in early education before having kids.

The "professionalization" of parenting is a distasteful trend. Some of the services, such as lactation consultation, are valuable - especially for first-time mothers who don't live near family or who lack a strong support network. But it becomes weird when a market emerges for kindergarten admissions consultants and professional baby proofers. Do we really need to pay someone to tell us where to hide the Mr. Clean?

Children can thrive without expensive gadgets and designer clothing. They have been doing so for generations. Parents would be wise not to confuse parenting with consumerism.