Child’s Play

Mary Jenner shares a home in Sacramento, California, with her husband, young daughter Josie, and a dozen 3D printers. The former nurse and founder of online store The Butterfly Pig – which includes a medical toy boutique – tells us how she’s taking tube-feeding representation into a whole new dimension.

Why is inclusion something you’re passionate about?

When I was working as a nurse I started in paediatric oncology, where I noticed a lot of my patients found the experience easier if they had things

to represent them. That’s what got me realising that we don’t have much representation for medical differences out there. The world has been pushing for more diversity and inclusion, but not so much for medical inclusion. There’s great work in progress, but it could be better.

What’s it like to work on paediatric oncology wards?

I didn’t have a kid at the time, so mentally it was a little easier for me. But oh my gosh, the kids on those wards are amazing. They’re going through the hardest time and yet those floors are so positive, which many people wouldn’t really realise.

Kids don’t really get depressed. With the older teens it was a little harder, but the younger kids would go about their day and they were happy. They’d want you to have tea parties with them – it was the best experience.

You began crafting toy medical devices while working with these kids. What did those toys look like?

If my patients had their teddy bear, I’d give it a pretend IV [intravenous] drip and I’d make all sorts of things out of bandages and bits and pieces.

One of my patients was about three-and-a-half – the same age my daughter is now – and I remember her wanting me to do everything she needed done to her on her teddy bear first. This made the whole process so much easier. She could see what I was doing and knew what to expect, so it wasn’t so scary.

What you’re describing there is a form of ‘play therapy’, which your toys naturally promote. Can you tell us how this works?

There are trained ‘play therapists’ who help with all sorts of things through play, but anyone can use toys to help teach kids about a medical procedure before it happens. During the procedure you can use toys to help distract kids or encourage them to get through it. And then afterwards, they can continue to help kids cope.

I’ve had some parents reach out to me after their child went through a traumatic medical experience. The child was okay, but they wanted their doll to have an endotracheal [breathing] tube so they could process what had happened to them.

It’s hard for kids to talk about their medical experience, but when they play with toys, just by watching them explain to their doll, ‘Oh, this is going to hurt’, you can see what scares them or how they feel about different procedures.

When did you get serious about making toy medical devices?

It was during my maternity leave, mid- pandemic, and I was in a mum group on Facebook where somebody asked, ‘Hey, does anyone know where I can get a doll-sized cochlear implant?’ I’ve always done crafty things on the side – like making miniatures out of clay – so I said I could make one.

I moulded a little clay cochlear implant, sent it to the mum and she said it was great. She posted on social media, a couple of other mums reached out and then I started getting more requests.

I couldn’t make everything people wanted out of clay and that’s what got me thinking about 3D printing. I have some experience with web design, so I downloaded and taught myself CAD [computer aided design] software and bought a 3D printer. And that really opened up the realm of possibilities of what we could make. We have 12 3D printers now.

You have a whole team of printers!

Yes, a little factory! And it’s all happening from my house. During the lockdowns my parents moved up here and when my dad saw what I was doing – he’s a retired engineer – he was like, I think I could help you with this. He now has a couple of printers at his house and helps design things, too.

Take me through the process of making something really simple, like a toy G-tube button, and the process of making your bitsier toy IV pole with a feeding pump and gravity bag attached…

With the G-tube button we just have to 3D design it and, once it’s printed, we might have to make a couple of changes to it to get it right. On average, we probably change things around 10 times before we’re satisfied with the design. Once we have that, we set it up on the printer, it prints, then we tidy it up and then it’s good to go.

For bigger pieces it’s the same process for designing, but we probably do more renditions because we have to make sure stuff fits together. I make the stickers – like the ones on the feeding pumps – using [design platform] Canva. The gravity bags are made with a vinyl press. There are a lot of steps, but it’s a lot of fun!

How long would it take to make a G-tube button versus your IV pole and pump set?

One G-tube button probably prints in 40 minutes. Then the IV pole – that whole set – gosh, that would probably take about 10 hours.

I can see why you have 12 printers. What are your products made out of? We mostly 3D print using a filament material called PLA [polylactic acid]. It’s actually a plastic alternative – like an eco-friendly plastic – which is typically made from corn, so that’s really neat. Then the flexible products like the pluggable G-tube are made from a medical-grade TPU [thermoplastic polyurethane].

So real feeding tubes could probably be 3D printed, yeah?

Probably! Human organs – like stomachs and bladders – are now being 3D printed, which is really cool. How did the medical device brands who make real feeding pumps – like Moog – feel about seeing their products in miniature? They loved it. I’d changed the phrasing on the stickers so instead of Moog, it said ‘Food’, but their team reached out and said they actually wanted me to use their phrasing. They sent me all their artwork and I recreated the label to look exactly like theirs.

Are your products showing up in many hospitals?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of Child Life Specialists that work at hospitals or independently are reaching out. Their role is to advocate for a child and support them through their treatment – and they are so excited that these toys finally exist.

Many of them were crafting their own, which was very time consuming, and they were buying the supplies with their own money. We opened a Child Life Specialist fund application because I know they don’t get as much funding as they should. We also have a separate fundraiser – a GoFundMe campaign – so people can donate our medical toys to Child Life Specialists.

While medical professionals are loving your products – what are the families saying?

There has been a lot of excitement! Parents have told me that their kids are just so happy to be represented. I’ve been tagged in some videos on social media showing kids opening their gifts and squealing. It’s very cute.

What does your daughter Josie think about what you do for work?

Oh, she loves it. I’m so impressed with her because I don’t take the time to explain things, but she’ll take our little vitals monitor and put it on the doll and say, ‘Oh, no, her heart’s not good! She needs oxygen!’ So then I’ll get her the little oxygen set, thinking, where are you learning this stuff?

She loves everything and whenever I make a new device, she wants to play with it. She has her own collection of our products with little defects.

Do all of Josie’s toys wear little medical devices?

Yes, because I use her stuffed animals for my TikTok videos! I'll sew G-tubes on them and then she’s like, wait, where did this come from!? I really need my own stuffed animals.