Hi there, you might remember us from our “Very Quickly 3D Printable Face Shield Design Proposal.” We are a group of junior year college students attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As an extension of our efforts to get us involved with the COVID-19 situation, we were again tasked with creating a face shield for a newborn baby.
Even if we are not sure how dangerous COVID-19 is to babies, we do know that babies are a particularly vulnerable group to sicknesses in general. As a precautionary measure, we believe that exposing them to COVID-19 is a risk that should be avoided at all costs. Thus, the need for a neonatal face shield arises. While the concept of a face shield is nothing new, a neonatal face shield will have its own set of design constraints which are different from adult face shields with the most important considerations being safety and comfort. Babies have softer, more delicate skin as well as a more delicate skull. Therefore, sharp edges and large contact pressure points should be avoided. Additionally, another consideration we had when we were designing this mask was that the baby would be laying down for the majority of the time it would be wearing the mask. This means that the traditional face mask might not work without modification as turning their head could possibly cause headband to fall off, exposing the baby to the possibly contaminated droplets.
Once we defined these design constraints, it was a good idea to revisit the purpose of a face shield. We defined the purpose as putting a barrier or shielding over the face of the user to prevent contaminated droplets from interacting with the wearer. Our next challenge to consider was, how do we attach the face shield to a baby while keeping in mind that safety and comfort were our primary concerns.
After considering a multitude of possibilities to affix the shield to the head, we settled upon using a standard neonatal cap that most babies are given when they are born. This hat prevents the baby from cooling down too much. Also commonly used instead of a beanie is stockinette, which is wrapped around the baby’s head. Our design clips onto the bottom circumference of the hat or stockinette at two points, one on each side of the head. Once attached, a piece of 8.5 x 11 acetate can be slipped into the band. Our design allows for easily modifiable plastic shielding.
While we have not tested on a real baby, it is difficult to judge the actual size of acetate needed for this design to be perfectly successful. However, it is important to consider that babies often have mishaps, such as ejection of the contents of their stomach at high velocities. A barrier in front of their face would catch this liquid. An easy to remove shield minimizes exposure time to the outside environment while also minimizing the time the baby would spend with the excretion near their face. Currently, the acetate sheet is held on either side by clips and hole punch in the center which pops over a nub. Considering that babies are not trying to remove the shield whilst being wrapped up, the design does not need the acetate to be completely immobile. However, if we found that the current nub is not robust enough, hooks can easily be added to the design to prevent the acetate from coming off.
The tiara-esque design that we came up with has the forehead not completely covered with a forehead shield. This is because babies have wildly varying head dimensions, so having a flat, rigid portion of plastic is not ideal as it prevents the design from being used widely. Additionally, the large single member that connects the two clips can still be flexed a small amount despite being designed with PLA being the material in mind. This flexion allows the band to expand around the baby’s head. This neonatal face shield was designed for babies with an average head circumference of 13 inches.
As we were given a short time frame to design and print this neonatal face shield we are still in the process of testing the printing process. We have not had a chance to print this version of the face shield. It has been designed to work with layer heights ranging from 0.2-0.32 mm and any printing speed that your printer is comfortable with should be fine. Infill should be set to 100% or ideally the wall count should be set to 100 to get a completely solid concentric infill.
Isometric Front View
Isometric Back View
Top View
3D Model :
Sales and Marketing: Julia Cuendet jmcuendet@wpi.edu
Manufacturing Engineer: Dana Landry dlandry@wpi.edu
Design Engineer: Connor Dietz ctd1513@gmail.com
Project Manager: Lena Sophia Thompson lsthompson@wpi.edu
