If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to leave a parent fraught with worry, it’s a sick child. As stressful as this is, however, giving your little one their medicine can be tricky and prove to be an even greater source of stress.
One woman who can absolutely relate to this is Dorota Dyk, a mother-of-two and inventor of MEDAPTI, an invention designed to make administering medicine to babies and children safer and easier.
The idea for MEDAPTI came to Dorota after she struggled to give medicine to her children when they were babies.
She reveals: “One was on reflux medication for months, and I was always worried about hurting his gums with the hard plastic syringe. My second baby refused to take it altogether, which left him very distressed and me upset and concerned.”
Dorota, like many other mums, had a number of concerns when it came to administering medication to her babies: if she squirted the medication outside of the mouth, she may give the incorrect dose; and if she shot the medication in too fast, her baby might choke.
She went through many different types of medicine dispensers, and each one was as troublesome or ineffective as the last; either too messy or difficult to use, or not suitable for small babies that didn’t take dummies or bottles.
“I used a medicine dummy, which helped, as at least I wasn’t worried about hurting his gums; but as he didn’t like dummies, I had to use the plunger and accidently shot it too fast down his throat many times and made him choke,” she adds.
Dorota knew there had to be a safer and easier way to get the medicine into her child’s system, so she created her own, in the form of MEDAPTI, which you can see in action below.
First and foremost, MEDAPTI helps to give the correct dosage. This works in two ways: if the baby pulls away, it helps to keep the syringe in the mouth; and it directs the medicine to the side of the mouth, away from the taste buds, making it harder for the baby to spit it out.
It also prevents choking. Dispensing medicine to the cheek is recommended as the safest way to administer medicine, and MEDAPTI is specially designed to function in this way.
Its soft material also protects Baby’s mouth and gums, and it only requires one hand to dispense – leaving you with a free arm and hand with which to hold your baby.
The production on the first batch of MEDAPTI should begin in the next few months and in the meantime, Dorota has also entered her invention, which she hopes to use to help parents and hospital staff everywhere, into Richard Branson’s pitching competition VOOM 2018 and needs your votes to help win it!
You can find out more information on MEDAPTI and vote for Dorota through this link.
