LSU Developers of Temperature-Monitoring Infant Hats Expanding Work to Other Vital Signs
December 03, 2024
Infancy is the most vulnerable time of life. Globally, 2.3 million children died in 2023 in the first 20 days of life, with approximately 6500 newborn deaths every day, according to the World Health Organization.
Sibei Xia, an assistant professor in LSU’s Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising, is leading pioneering research aimed at alleviating the stress of new parents.
Collaborating with LSU human ecology professor Chuanlan Liu and Ph.D. student Yanbo “Bonnie” Zhang, the team is developing wearable technology that could redefine infant care.
As a mother, Xia understands the anxiety that comes with monitoring the well-being of a newborn.
“I was concerned about my son's fever and his vital signs when he was little,” Xia said.
The team previously developed a temperature-detecting hat for infants and is now looking to expand to wearable technology that monitors other vital signs that concern parents.
From Concept to Prototype
The journey began with the adaptation of advanced textile technologies.
“In general, a baby's temperature is not as stable as an adult’s. Usually, babies, especially newborns, will wear a hat to help them regulate their body temperature,” Xia said.
Leveraging the capabilities of department’s knitting machines, Xia incorporated thermochromic yarns — a yarn that changes color in response to temperature — into an infant hat.
“With our product, you don't have to use a thermometer to measure frequently. The hat will just continuously monitor the forehead temperature. Then, just by looking at it, you will be able to tell if it’s detecting a fever or not,” Xia said.
This hat can provide immediate visual feedback about a baby’s body and environmental temperature changes.
“It will linearly change color between 38 through 40 degrees Celsius, or from 100 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. When the color of the fabric is lighter, it means the temperature is higher,” Xia said.
They tested different yarn combinations, colors, and settings, before landing on a purple yarn.
"Temperature changes are crucial signs for certain infant health concerns," Zhang said.
Assessing Infant Health Beyond Temperature
“We are trying to expand the product category by taking in smart textile applications so that we can actually detect other vitals, such as breathing and also moisture on the surface of the body so that we can potentially and eventually build a device that can detect why baby cries.”
Sibei Xia, assistant professor
LSU’s Department of Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising
The team decided to learn more about customer needs and research a potential market for their new technology.
“It’s critical for development in the future and commercializing. That's the reason we participated in the NSF I-Corps program, to explore more about our customer needs,” Zhang said.
The U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps, or I-Corps, program is an immersive, entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention into impact. Zhang’s expertise is in customer behavior, merchandising, and marketing.
“When we started the journey, I thought the most important thing or barrier we would have to handle to launch a scalable startup successfully was technology. After the I-Corps training, we agreed that technology is only a tool; the success factor is to solve the problems of target customers. There is no scalable business if we do not solve a fascinating problem among the targeted customers,” said Liu.
Through the I-Corps program, the team surveyed and spoke with more than 100 new parents, which revealed that fever wasn’t the only concern for new parents.
“There are other concerns, such as whether my baby is breathing or not and asking why the baby cries. We are trying to expand the product category by taking in smart textile applications so that we can actually detect other vitals, such as breathing and also moisture on the surface of the body so that we can potentially and eventually build a device that can detect why baby cries,” Xia said.
They are currently working with companies utilizing smart textiles to come up with solutions to better capture vital signs for babies. Once they have a product finished, they plan to bring it to families to use.
“Depending on the market size, if we outsource the production, the items could be on the market quickly. Nowadays, textile and apparel industries are shifting toward proof manufacturing, namely, collecting orders and then running production to avoid handling too much inventory,” Liu said.
“We will definitely talk to pediatricians or neonatal intensive units, or NICUs, to do some testing on babies,” Xia said. “I have been a new mom myself, so it was a challenge for me to monitor my baby. There was some stress of being new parents. Our intention for our product is to help release some of that stress.”
Next Step
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