Design of a breastfeeding support aid for the nursing staff

Design of a breastfeeding support aid for the nursing staff

Steenbeek, B.

Albayrak, A. (mentor)
Dekker, M.C. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Integrated Product Design, MeDisign

2013-06-20

Breastfeeding might be seen as something natural and ‘easy’, however often directly after birth babies do not ‘latch-on’ properly to the nipple of the mother and nurses need to assist. During this activity they support the baby’s head and body and the mothers’ breast in order to guide the baby correctly to the breast. Such a process can even take up to 12 minutes during which the nurses stand in static postures bending forwards with their upper body and often twisting their backs, which ultimately may result in low back pain or even hernias. The aim of this project was to improve the breastfeeding support process for the nursing staff within the hospital, thereby making it a more comfortable action for them to perform. The product should decrease the prevalence of low back pain (LBP) amongst the nursing staff within the Obstetrics & Gynecology ward (O&G) and thereby the absenteeism due to these symptoms. The final design was prototyped and after testing the product with the end users it showed that the nursing staff was really pleased with the support given by the product. The dynamic integration of the thorax support with counterforce supported their upper bodies correctly and nurses perceived both hip and knee support to be useful. Several design recommendations were generated upon the transportation, height adjustment techniques and aesthetics of the product.

Breastfeeding
Support
Ergonomics
Nurse
Hospital

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:48b44ea4-9180-4a32-8311-bb426f960584

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Steenbeek, B.