Future Care (FC) needs to research if mothers can instinctively and intuitively sense if their infant is unwell. The research will include but not limited to:

1. Academic, learned research review focused on this topic and what conclusions can be drawn from existing materials and past research around this topic.

2. To define research questions and carry out research to support or dispute the hypothesis that women have an innate and profound maternal instinct and intuition in sensing if their infant is unwell or not.

The academic review and deep dive into this hypothesis (points1&2) will provide FC with the evidence to support FC’s understanding of this connection between mother and baby. This understanding will then feed into our business model, marketing, and value proposition.

FC will work with the university’s course tutor/academic(s) in how the above can be structed in line with the students’ abilities, course remit, resources, and time frames. We are happy to pay for inexpensive circulation of quantitative questionnaire research or discuss qualitative research if relevant to support this project(s) research/hypothesis.

FC are not academics so will need help in unpacking the following information into one or more research questions/hypothesis.

Besides the behavioural motivations for purchasing a baby monitor and functional value of the device in accurately remotely monitoring an infant’s vital signs, we believe the device will help build the mother’s confidence to rely on their natural ‘instinct/intuition’. The device can validate or refute their instinct. In the same way as pregnant women and after having given birth mothers often seek a greater connection with their bodies pre and post-natal and keeping ‘in-tune’ with their own bodies. If we can use the device to build a mother confidence this will benefit the mother’s health, make her feel more in control and appearing to be a better mother to her peers and contemporaries. Having more confidence and being more relaxed will mean the mother is in better health, getting more sleep and this in turn will impact on the quality of her ability to produce quality immunities and richer, more nourishing breast milk. This then benefits the baby, so the baby is not picking up (fight or flight) sensitivities around the stresses and anxiety in the family environment, more content and better fed has better sleep/routine patterns. These holistic changes in the infant’s environment and behaviour will benefit the family. Lastly, if the mother is more confident and less stressed and anxiouse, there will be a better relationship with their partner and baby. We also believe that this confidence will result in less knee-jerk reaction and need to call and access medical services and resources, e.g. NHS111, hospital A&E, GP surgeries or health visitor home visits.

The device also helps mitigate the stereotype casting of a mother who may have a genuine concern about the infant’s health but is undermined and labelled as a “worried “and “anxiouse” mother by a mistrustful and sceptical partner/family member. Our device provides objective, empirical evidence to confirm or refute a parent’s infant health and wellness concerns.

The other behavioural hypothesis is that Dads are rarely fully engaged with the parenting process. A bit of ‘geeky’ tech could be a means of motivating them to be more engaged and confident in talking part in the parenting process and looking after the baby on their own. The same would also apply to a parent’s anxiety in leaving their infant with a grandparent. Or the grandparent feeling more confident in that they know they have a device that can also be linked to a clinician for an on-demand diagnosis or access to help in answering a question.

As for behavioural purchasing decisions like refusal to have the COVID vaccine some parents do not want a baby monitor. Again we are interested in the psychological, behavioural reasons for this, how we overcome them and reduce barriers to entry.

FC offers student(s) or teams a meet and greet 1hr+ conf call and thereafter a 30min/weekly mentoring and coaching session until the project is completed.

FC also has a Dropbox containing student’s CV’s who have competed FC’s research. This is made available to our partners to support the student in developing their career prospects.