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Friday, August 28, 2009
Baby Boost's dust-infused products aim to boost kids' immune systems
By Galen Moore
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An MIT researcher and two moms turned retail mavens are looking for new ways to introduce dust into babies’ breathing environments.
First launched in 2004, the Baby Boost line of products infused baby blankets with 16 kinds of microscopic plant and animal proteins typically found airborne in rural environments. By exposing city-dwelling babies to natural dust, researchers hope to prevent asthma and allergies from developing later on.
“A baby’s immune system is actually sensing the world and saying these things here are normal and not dangerous to me,” said MIT researcher Simon Dao, who developed the technology behind Baby Boost. “You can imagine an immune system that grows up not knowing about certain things that are really normal, because it’s never encountered them before, and when it encounters them it builds up a response. And that’s what allergy and asthma is.”
Dao’s technology is designed to prevent those conditions by exposing babies to naturally occurring proteins early on.
The products first hit the market on Baby Splendor, a direct-sales agency for baby products founded by two Massachusetts mothers who were looking for alternative baby products on their own. Baby Splendor developed the Baby Boost textile products with Dao and other researchers, but only about 1,000 products sold through the company, which organized direct-sales parties for baby products, said co-founder Julie Gordon.
She and partner Kelly Majewski are now shutting down Baby Splendor to focus full-time on developing new products and distribution models for the Baby Boost line.
Selling the product in a retail environment has proven challenging, Majewski said. “We had it on a few store shelves, but it really needs to be explained,” she said. Customers were confusing it with hypo-allergenic products designed not to exacerbate already existing allergies, she said.
Dao said he and other researchers have assembled a prototype of an automatic air freshener that uses the Baby Boost technology. “Instead of releasing a scent, it releases proteins,” he said. They are now looking for a way to manufacture and distribute the new product.
Eventually, he hopes to find a way to develop toys and hard-plastic items that will release the Baby Boost proteins.
The idea that allergies are caused by parents’ increasing attention to hygiene, and children’s lack of exposure to a natural environment, is gaining the support of a growing consensus among scientists, Dao said.
However, he acknowledged that deliberate exposure to natural proteins, such as Baby Boost offers, has yet to be proven in a definitive study.
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