Becoming a parent is an enormous, happy, lifechanging transition. For the parents of babies born early, this transition can be bigger, more terrifying and create emotions so strong that can only be understood by those in the same situation.
Samvær is a toolkit that allows parents of premature children to connect and share their emotions and feelings with other parents in the same situation.
I designed the toolkit as part of my master thesis in collaboration with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kolding Hospital.
For this project, I worked very closely with seven families that have been hospitalised at the NICU in Kolding with their children. Over a span of six months I learned from them, listened and co-created this project
The kit also includes a series of objects. As it can be tough to share traumatic experiences and find the words to explain what one is encountering, these objects aim to help express these feelings and make sharing more accessible.
Each object represents an emotion a parent might feel while being at the NICU. They have been developed in close collaboration with the parents.
The Samvær toolkit is designed to be used within the context of a peer-to-peer support system. Parents currently in the hospital with their children can receive help and support from veterans - parents which have been in the same situation before.
It is based on celebrating and sharing positive moments and memories, as well as making difficult emotions more tangible.
The kit includes a card congratulating the parents on the arrival of their child, activity cards that give the parents the option to choose what they would like to do during the meetings, emotion objects, and a map and memory cards, which allow one to document and keep fond memories made in the hospital.
The parents can place the objects on the map of a body to emphasise how the different emotions feel.
Throughout the project, it became clear that many of the parents I spoke to did not remember as much from their hospital stay as they would have liked to. Throughout our conversations, I learned how many little and big celebrations are happening on the ward. I wanted to combine the two and find a way in which the parents can document the happy memories they make throughout their stay.
Stickers of different milestones that every NICU parent and child goes through can be placed on the memory cards which the parents can take home and cherish.