In recent months, in a hundred French hospitals, hospitalized infants have experienced a great innovation: a small heart-shaped box that has the power to simulate the presence of their parents.
In the absence of these, the small box called CaliNange comfort them hospitalized babies through a system multi-sensory recording which recreates its “innate natural cocoon”. Aurore Saintigny, the founder of the start-up calinescence who imagined and designed this product in Metz in August 2019, came up with the idea after being forced to leave her newborn baby at the hospital.
This solution, certified since August 2020 and designed specifically for a hospital useallows the baby to listen to the voice of his dad and his momas well as beats of their hearts, previously recorded. The small box can also be impregnated with their smell, to always have the feeling of being with them. Because some medical treatments require to isolate the child from his parents for long periods of timethis system has been designed to “recreate a personal environment, known, familiar and therefore soothing to the child”, as we can read on Calinescence website.
An easy-to-use and very promising object
CaliNange seduced a hundred hospitals in France in recent months, and even firefighters get started! The small device makes it possible to accompany the baby during transport to the hospital, for example, by offering him a comforting environment.
“Its use is simple“, assures Aurore Saintigny to our colleagues from BFMTV.com. “On the heart, there are 3 buttons: one that picks up the parent’s heartbeat, voice and smell, one to broadcast it to the baby, and one to adapt it according to the environment in which the baby is. ‘child“. CaliNange is also provided with a music modeas well as a soothing light included in the shell and reproducing the light perceived by the baby in its mother’s womb. From small silicone cords are also present on the included case to prevent infants from pulling on their possible nasogastric tubes.
The founder of the start-up, a former engineer in the automotive industry, added that during the Covid epidemic“it served well in the case of mothers who had just given birth but were tested positive and thus had to stay away from their baby”.
This system, channeling both pediatric and parental anxieties, has therefore made a name for itself in neonatology and intensive care units. This “guardian angel of the family bond” still has a cost: €950 excluding tax, and it is not currently covered by Social Security. This French project, initially developed for use in neonatal resuscitationhas already been adapted for use with our eldersespecially for the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease.