Why one entrepreneur has been busy crash-testing baby clothes
Christine Carolan of Cosynest will launch her design on Kickstarter today.
A TOP UK crash lab has given its seal of approval to an Irish design that could prevent babies being injured during collisions through poor use of restraints.
Dublin-based baby-product designer Christine Carolan will today launch the product, called the Cosynest, on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in a bid to market her child suit to the world.
The design – described as a cross between a onesie and a coat - allows babies to be fully restrained in a car seat without resorting to bulky clothes that can leave a child poorly secured under their straps.
Carolan said while the Kickstarter target was set at €12,500, she was hoping to “go way beyond that” and crack the lucrative overseas market with the product, which has been two years in the making.
She had previously developed her own line in reversible baby clothes after being made redundant from her job with a multinational during the recession.
“We have been selling other products, but Ireland’s such a small market and I wouldn’t have the budget behind me to launch in the US – that’s when someone recommended Kickstarter to me,” the mother-of-two told Fora.
The Cosynest design
Crash-test dummies
Carolan, working in conjunction with Trinity College, took her design to the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory for testing in February using funding from an Enterprise Ireland innovation voucher.
“I knew myself, based on my own experiences, that babies are safer with this design … but I thought ‘who am I to put that out there’ – I wanted to have some scientific proof behind me as well.”
The crash test, which was run under conditions put together in Trinity’s school of engineering, showed her design remained secure while a dummy clothed in a ‘snow suit’ lost one of its restraints in the same collision scenario.
The snow suit crash test
Dr Ciaran Simms, an associate professor of biomechanical engineering at the college, said retaining a child in its seat was crucial for safety – and the Cosynest showed in the UK tests it was the better option for keeping a baby in place.
He said young children were much more likely to be seriously injured in a crash if they were ejected from their seats. Traffic collisions are the leading cause of child mortality in Ireland.
