Innovative hospital bassinet promises to better support new families
An innovative hospital bassinet promises to better support new families through enabling breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact and mother-infant bonding, while improving newborn safety.
The Couplet Care Bassinet is designed to remove significant structural barriers for mothers and infants in hospital postnatal units. This includes making it easier, more comfortable and safer for mothers to access their infants and develop a strong breastfeeding relationship than experienced with use of existing hospital bassinets. The unmet need is especially pronounced for mothers experiencing pain and/or limited mobility from Cesarean section (C-section) or complicated vaginal deliveries. All new mothers are fatigued and deserve enabling environments.
A $100,000 grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center supported stakeholder feedback, design refinements, prototype manufacture, and pilot testing. According to Kristin Tully, PhD and Catherine Sullivan MPH, RD, LDN, IBCLC, FAND, leaders of the project, bassinet testing will begin in 2021 under the direction of Amanda Thompson, PhD, at N.C. Women's Hospital, in Chapel Hill, and Vidant Medical Center, in Greenville.
Development of the bassinet is a story of a methodical, evidence-based and human-centered design process involving a diverse inter-university collaboration and support from many sources.
"What we have been able to achieve is the result of thoughtful collaboration," explained Ty Hagler, principal of Trig, a Triangle-based industrial design firm on the bassinet team.
Tully was supported by CBGI in establishing an interdisciplinary team across UNC-Chapel Hill, including Catherine Sullivan, director of CGBI; Carl Seashore, MD, professor of pediatrics; and Alison Stuebe, MD, MSc, associate professor of maternal-fetal medicine and medical director of lactation services at UNC Health Care. The team partnered with NC State industrial design graduate students. Sharon Joines, PhD, associate dean of the College of Design, led students in work using Tully's research and federal regulations to develop a prototype. NC TraCS funded this first phase of the project, beginning in 2016.
Read more at ncbiotech.org/news.