At the University of Minnesota’s Wearable Technology Lab, clothing becomes medical care
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Lucy Dunne’s firstborn child was diagnosed with jaundice through a blood test just one day after birth. Medical staff placed her daughter in a bassinet under an electric lamp and treated her with blue light therapy. But when Dunne’s baby cried, she was not allowed to pick her up.
“Doing what I do for a living, it was pretty obvious that we could do better,” Dunne said. “So, since then, we've been working on this idea of trying to take that light therapy that treats jaundice and bring it into a onesie that fits close to the baby's skin.”
Up to 60 percent of newborns develop jaundice, a common and easily reversible condition that causes a yellow tint to their skin and eyes. Though jaundice typically occurs within the first few days of life and is usually harmless, some infants require therapeutic phototherapy, or blue light therapy, in the hospital or at home to prevent complications. This treatment often separates them physically from their loved ones.
Researchers and scientists at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design Wearable Technology Lab are developing wearable apparel that combines traditional garments with new technology to make clothing more useful for people.
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Dunne, a professor in the College of Design, founded the Lab in 2008. One project she is currently focused on is a specialized onesie for newborns that treats jaundice while allowing caregivers to hold and comfort them during treatment.
Engineering clothing for human health
Inside the Wearable Technology Lab on the U’s St. Paul campus, a specialized sewing machine called a serger hums as it trims off excess fabric from a large piece of textile. Wires, pliers, soldering irons, zippers and tiny hardware pieces cover the surfaces. Mannequins are dressed in functional garments designed to effectively deliver heat to a person’s body. Other clothing designs assist with upper-limb mobility for children with mobility impairments.
The research team and their students recently returned from a visit to NASA, where they presented findings on engineering solutions for garment challenges encountered by astronauts during human spaceflight.
Brad Holschuh, associate professor and lab co-director, said one project they are working on involves compression stockings for astronauts that move from loose to tight-fitting.
“It's a space flight example, but it introduces a new paradigm for what clothing can do," Holschuh said. “Compression garments, in everyday life, are a billion-dollar industry."
Holschuh said that people wear compression garments for many different health conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, lymphedema or burn recovery, but relying solely on stockings or large inflatables is an outdated approach.
Researchers are examining compression garments beyond just circulatory support.
“People use compression garments as a behavioral intervention,” Holschuh said. “Folks that have autism or sensory processing disorder oftentimes use stimulation of pressure on their upper body as a means of interrupting a mental health episode.”
Lighting the way for infant care
Dunne aims to make clothing more powerful, thereby empowering individuals who wear it. She is creating a soft, stretchy, close-fitting full-body baby onesie embedded with about 112 sapphire-blue LED lights to treat jaundice.
On a long table in front of Dunne are two dolls resembling infants, which she humorously calls her "creepy baby dolls." Holes have been cut into the dolls to fit sensors and devices that measure the amount of blue light emitted by the onesie onto the dolls' pliable skin.
Dunne said that researchers in the lab have worked with "strange" mannequins over the years because assessing the wearables requires specially designed tools and devices to prove that the design is effective.
The onesie has wires that connect to a wall outlet, providing it with continuous power. While it could also run on batteries, Dunne said this design is safe, comfortable and helps to keep heat away from the baby's body.
“Imagine your baby, but it's wrapped in Christmas lights. It's basically what it looks like,” Dunne said. “They wind their way through the onesie, and they wrap around the three dimensions of the body, over the feet and over the hands and over the head, and that gets to as much of the skin surface as possible.”
It is crucial to expose a baby’s skin to blue light treatment because the light alters bilirubin — a naturally occurring yellow-pigmented chemical in red blood cells that causes jaundice — transforming it into a water-soluble form that the body can eliminate through stool and urine.
Newborns typically have higher bilirubin levels than adults because they possess a larger number of red blood cells, which break down more rapidly, leading to increased bilirubin production. Their livers are also still maturing and are less efficient at removing bilirubin from their bodies.
Improving a decades-old treatment
Dr. Katie Satrom is a neonatologist and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on managing neonatal jaundice in preterm infants and in infants born in low-resource settings around the world.
“Our biggest concern is that very severely elevated bilirubin levels, which are rare, harm the baby and can lead to brain injury,” Satrom said.
The goal of blue light therapy is to maintain a baby's bilirubin levels at steady and low rates so they can go home. But one of the greatest challenges, according to Satrom, is that parents cannot hold or comfort their babies during this treatment.
Satrom said that despite the fact that blue light therapy has been an effective and safe treatment for nearly 60 years, some people believe that the issue has been completely resolved. Researchers like Dunne are actively working to enhance the delivery of this therapy and the results from her onesie prototype are showing great promise.
Dunne is working towards bringing her project through clinical trials, but first, she will continue performing safety and efficacy tests on doll mannequins before testing the onesie on a day-old human baby.
“We can measure how much better it's going to be compared to the current treatment,” Dunne said. “We’re pretty excited about the potential improvements.”
