- Client:VHIR (Vall d'Hebron Instituto de Investigación)
- Sector: Medical, Health
- Services: Design, Industrialization
- Year: 2018
- Team:
Design Lead, Ramón Martínez
Miquel Pons, CTO
The Easysims pillow is presented as a simple and non-invasive solution to the excess of caesarean sections, and above all, to ease labour and reduce pain for many women. The pillow is designed so that women can easily and correctly position themselves in a specific position where the diameter of the pelvis opens up.
According to the Vall de Hebron Hospital, in about 40% of pregnancies, the foetus is not very well positioned, a fact that can make vaginal delivery difficult. If the position is not corrected, it is often necessary to perform a caesarean section or use forceps.
requirements
Designing and manufacturing the Easysims pillow
Vanessa Bueno, a midwife at Vall de Hebron, has designed a postural pillow for pregnant women that helps the foetus to turn towards the ideal position. Women, lying on their side, place it between their legs to open the diameter of the pelvis and provoke the internal rotation of the knee of the upper leg. In this way, the pillow helps to turn the head of the foetus downwards, as it finds more space in the pelvis.
Stimulo is collaborating with the Vall de Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) to develop and industrialise the Easysims device to promote foetal rotation and reduce the number of caesarean sections.
process
From prototype to a product for daily use in hospitals
In devising the shape of the pillow, the creator drew on a clinical study to find out how best to facilitate the rotation of the foetus during labour when malposition occurs. The best position, she says, is with the woman in lateral decubitus (side lying, the so-called modified Sims position). Therefore, during the study, hospital bunk beds were used to lift the leg with the woman on her side. The results showed that this reduced caesarean sections by 16%. The problem, says Bueno, is that “the bunk bed reduces comfort” and that is why he decided to design the pillow “since there is no such pillow for this purpose. So it can be used by any woman regardless of the hospital bed and we make sure that the position, the pelvic opening angle and the knee rotation of the upper leg are always appropriate and that the woman is comfortable,” says Vanessa.
Apart from its use to facilitate vaginal delivery, this pillow also helps pregnant women to improve rest during the third trimester of pregnancy. “The recommended resting position for pregnant women to improve oxygenation of the foetus and reduce maternal pressure drops is the lateral decubitus position. Therefore, this pillow is ideal for achieving and maintaining this position for many hours, as it avoids lumbar pain and discomfort,” says Vanessa Bueno.
400.000
Parts en Espanya
4000000
Parts en Europa
25%
Per cesària
Value
Project CIMTI
The support of CIMTI is not accompanied by a financial endowment but allows the Easysims team to receive advice and mentoring on legislative, market and business aspects, and on how to focus and achieve a greater valorisation of the project, along with facilitating access to contacts with different agents in the sector, including manufacturers and distributors. All this to help in the implementation of the device in the health system, and to facilitate access to all users who can benefit from it.
Thus, it becomes the second VHIR project selected to receive support from CIMTI in the two years of operation of this initiative created in 2017 by the LEITAT Foundation, with the support of the Department of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS) and with the collaboration of CIMTI in Boston. So far, during this time, they have supported 12 innovation projects in Catalonia, including another VHIR project in collaboration with the company Onalabs.
EASYSIMS presents a utility model:
“Postural device for pregnant women” Application Dato: 09/04/2018
Application Number: U201830489
It can now be used by any pregnant woman who needs it during labour at the Vall de Hebron Hospital and the results of this study have been published in the journal Birth.
learnings
Innovation in nursing
Each project and company is different, and in order to adapt to each of you we work with different collaboration models. In the case of Vall de Hebron Research Institute with a high growth potential project, we proposed a shared risk collaboration model, where Stimulo makes a direct investment in the project.
