Mothers get to experience the beautiful process of pregnancy, all the good and the bad times included. For the parents-to-be, a baby’s kick is a very special moment which they can share only by placing their hand over the mother’s belly.
A group of students from the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology came up with the idea to make the pregnancy experience richer for both parents and even the loved ones. They have developed a bracelet called Fibo that allows the wearer to feel the unborn baby’s movements in real-time.
First Bond Wearables, A Danish startup, launched by Sandra Pétursdóttir, Henriette Ryder Anderson, and Eszter Eva Smid has created Fibo. The inspiration for this device came from a jewelry course which they took while focusing on wearable technology.
“In the neighborhood where our school is located, there are a lot of young, hip parents walking around and playing with their babies. Many of our friends have also started to have children, so although none of us are parents ourselves (not yet), there are babies all around us,” explained the co-founder Pétursdóttir.
Fibo was the perfect fit for their idea of a product that was both aesthetically pleasing and technologically innovative.
During the last trimester of pregnancy, the mother can wear a baby kick monitor on her belly and whenever the baby moves, kicks, or even hiccups; Fibo receives the movement data. The wearer of the bracelet can feel these changes when the four pearls on the bracelet mimic them in real-time.
“When the pearls inside the bracelet start rotating, the father will know his baby is kicking or moving and that is without putting his hands on the mother’s belly. He can, therefore, feel this wherever he goes. This way we are hoping he will bond with the baby sooner because the mother is bonding with the baby throughout the whole pregnancy. Many fathers we spoke to said they first realized they were bringing a new life into the world when they heard their baby’s heartbeat for the first time. We want this feeling to last longer,” says Pétursdóttir.
The First Bond Wearables is planning to launch Fibo within a year. However, this device is not the first one of its kind as a baby belt, with a similar function, has already been designed by Huggies for fathers or surrogate parents.
With the technologies developing so fast, the fathers in future may bond with their babies even better than they do today.
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