Parents can now obtain advice about their babies by scanning quick response codes on their blankets.
If there are two things that all parents of new babies have in common, it is that they will all swaddle their children in a blanket at some point and they will all have questions about how to provide those infants with the best care, and this is exactly how a new program based on QR codes plans to help.
A company called Swaddle Designs has launched a tech-enabled blanket that allows parents to scan and learn.
The QR codes are on the blankets, themselves, and provide parents who scan them with instructions about how to actually swaddle the baby in the first place. They can also provide these same parents with a number of other types of tips and reminders, depending on the settings that they choose after having scanned the 2d barcode on the soft cloth.
The QR codes have been added to the product to give new parents the information they need, when they need it.
As a growing number of new parents have their smartphones with them nearly all the time, it means that they have all the tools they need to be able to use the quick response codes to unlock helpful information for knowing that they have swaddled their babies properly. They can watch short videos from the well known Happiest Baby on the Block pediatrician, Dr. Harvey Karp, and can learn a number of helpful tips about baby care. It even has an option to provide white noise, which can be very soothing to a baby – and a new parent, for that matter.
This is just one more instance of the way in which these 2D barcodes are being used for child care, as a growing number of products are being developed to feature these black and white squares. Other examples include scannable car seats for safety instructions as well as bed sheets that can be scanned for a bedtime story.
The question now is whether or not parents will buy these tech enabled blankets and other products and, if they do, whether those same individuals will actually scan the QR codes and use the various opportunities that they provide. For many new parents, every little bit helps, so this added resource could be highly appealing. It will certainly make for an interesting topic of conversation at the baby shower!
