Toy babies also suffer from diabetes and need to go with their insulin pump so that at all times optimal glucose levels are guaranteed.
It is the idea of Murcia girls like Daniela and Mercedes, two little ones who already have their 'doll' to which this device for the control of the disease has incorporated, also helping them not feeling "weird bugs" in their dayTo day.Both are already fortunate to play daily with a doll that is a reflection of themselves.
This is the project that has recently launched the Murcia Association for Diabetes Care (Adirmu) under the name ‘My baby has diabetes’.More and more children suffer from this disease that use continuous insulin infusion pumps to administer the multiple doses they need in their day to day.
It is a system that simulates an artificial pancreas and supplies insulin based on blood glucose controls, which for many patients has meant a kind of ‘liberation’.Children with diabetes have to do more controls than adults, which supposed that, before the arrival of new technology, parents and children live, continuously, pending blood sugar levels, radiative strips and needles.But the insulin release system allows you to relax controls.
"See her happy, the most important"
«Daniela loved the idea.She was very excited and told all her friends that she was going to receive this gift, ”says Loles, his mother.The little girl, who is 10 years old and lives in the Murcian district of Torreagüera, has been the insulin bomb that helps him with continuous glucose monitoring in real time."Seeing her happy is the most important thing, because it is a very silent disease and it is a way of making inclusive toys," explains Loles.In the region of Murcia Diabetes affects about 143,000 people who are diagnosed.Despite this figure, the Regional Murcia Federation of Diabetes Associations (FREMUD) has been alerting the infradiagnosis of this disease, since there could be about 50,000 possible diabetes patients who still know that they suffer.
From Adirmu they explain that "between the option to do so in an injected manner, which forces a minimum of three rapid insulin injections and one of basal, and does not let you make any intake of hydrates outside the three main meals of the day", many, manyFamilies of children with diabetes are opting for these bombs.
In this way, children can eat more freedom, although always in a healthy way, correct possible hypoglycemia without a puncture and spend the night with normal blood glucose levels.
It is clearly an advantage, but these external use devices and even with catheters "make many of these children and their families feel observed by their environment" in the absence of the disease.
Thus, the work of standardization and visibility of these tools, together with living with children with diabetes who put their toy babies insulin and do the glucose test, led Adirmu to think about also placing the insulin bombs themselvesto his dolls.
With the support of the Francisco Salzillo de Alcantarilla Institute and two of their teachers, Mercedes Guzmán and Juan Antonio Frutos, as well as various students, through a 3D printer they made these insulin pumps made on scale and that use the same catheter as aconventional bomb to be placed in the body of these toy babies.
Waiting list
Daniela and Mercedes were the first girls to receive their gifts from Reyes a few days.For them they are much more than a simple toy: "It is the normalization of diabetes and the visibility of how children who suffer from it live."Admi currently has more than 600 associated families.Its manager, Silvia Serrano, points out that the goal is to extend to the rest of the children who are part of the association these toy babies.«We have waiting list to continue making more insulin pumps.Until now it had been a prototype to see how children reacted, but the truth is that at the time they saw it they were very excited, their eyes shone and we felt totally satisfied with the initiative, ”explains Serrano.