Design Challenge and Design Ideas

Breastfeeding offers benefits to both mother and baby, but an oft-cited reason for stopping are mothers’ concerns over low mik supply. Other than imprecise pre- and post-feed weighing, no solution existed on the market when Coro’s founder, Helen, had her first born tiny baby. Luckily, this doctor and her engineering husband, Jamie, had the idea for a wireless, flow-based measurement system to track baby’s milk consumption and sought about developing it.
The challenge was to create a product that accurately measures the amount of milk fed to baby and reports it in real-time to a companion app. The solution would need to preserve the important closeness-of-contact between mother and baby, and not reduce the propensity of baby to feed.
The initial design intent was to emulate the known feeding success + market acceptance of nipple shields, and augment with a method of accurate, miniaturised flow measurement plus wireless data transfer.

How the brief was fulfilled

The combined team of Coroflo and Dolmen have designed and developed the world’s first accurate breastfeeding monitor. Coroflo designed the flow measurement, communication electronics and companion app. Dolmen designed the physical nipple shield, carry case and seamless integration of electronics into the shield.
Coro incorporates a patented, tiny, non-invasive micro-sensor; its small size has ensured that the size of feed-area is no different to shields currently available. The miniaturised, lowenergy flow sensor is located directly at the reusable shield’s teat outlet with wiring connection moulded through the ultra-thin silicone to a small electronics hub at the base of the shield. Miniaturised electronics mean the shield size is not visible when feeding, so mothers and their babies to resemble any other nursing team.
Coro’s flow technology and connectivity give accurate, precise and real-time data to mothers through the app. The app helps mothers to maintain confidence in feeding through cloud-based anayltics showing feed variation over time, milk temperature, left/right balance, typical feed profiles and allows comparison to babies of a similar age.
Through its in-app insights, Coro sustains mothers in breastfeeding with a reusable, smart nipple shield; this cuts the cost, energy, water and material usage associated with formula feeding (bottles, sterilisation regimes, formula powder manufacture, formula preparation, packaging waste) to offer a low-carbon footprint and good health + wellbeing sustainable baby feeding method.

A rounded clamshell carry case holds and charges Coro between uses, with the carry case charging wire concealed neatly in the upper clam shell. Coro is cleaned with warm soapy water and rinsed after each use, before air drying and storage in its pod.
With a need to locate some electronics outside the priority feeding zone, Coro has a broad base; however, Coro takes advantage of this design-space requirement to realise a soft heart outline form as a subtle reminder of the flow of love between mother and her baby. Coro’s feeding area is transparent silicone, while electronics are concealed behind neutral white tones.
The result is a seamlessly intimate feeding experience between mother and baby where bond and feeding success are prioritised, and technology blends into obscurity.