Roo - Eilidh Johnson
The incubator adaption system to encourage mother-to-baby connection for critically ill or premature infants
Neonatal wards are clinical, sterilized environments with a steady chorus of beeps and flashes. They help critically ill babies survive, however, parents often find the ward stressful and daunting. That’s where the Roo incubator adaption system can help.
Roo is a two-part system made up of the Heartbeat Module and Support-to-Sling blanket. Each product tackles a different research insight concerning the barriers to skin-to-skin contact within modern neonatal wards.
The Heartbeat Module adds emotional stimuli to the ward in the most natural of ways; the mother’s heartbeat. The module mimics this within the incubator so that the baby can be calmed by the sensation, even when the parents have gone home for the night. The parent's heartbeat is converted using specialised code that recognises the peaks and troughs then outputs these as a vibrotactile simulation.
The Support-to-Sling blanket recognises that wanting to hold and cuddle your infant is instinctive, however, the many sensors and tubes that are attached to a premature baby make this tricky. The blanket tackles the barrier of being able to pick up your baby using a safe and secure method to build the parent’s confidence.
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