For babies who have to stay in hospitals a while after birth, it’s important for them to have contact with their parents. So some neonatal intensive care units use scent cloths that absorb a parent’s smell and are then placed in the crib with the baby.
“So the baby can feel the comfort of the mother’s scent and start kind of bonding and recognizing her scent," Ilan Chmelnik said.
Chmelnik is a recent Arizona State University grad who, along with his friend, created Enchanted Baby.
“We patented a design of a new sleep sack with a chest pocket into it," he said. "We want to extend the use of the scent cloths, so the parent can still use this concept while at home without the cloth being a health hazard.”
If the cloth were loose in the crib, a growing baby could suffocate or choke on it. The duo is in the process of testing the product with new parents.
"The goal of Enchanted Baby is to help new parents with their experience," Chmelinik said. "So the sleep sack is just our first product and we're going into other ways to make the parent more accessible to the baby, even when they're unavailable."
