Exploring Playful Technology to Support Breastfeeding Education

• Duration: 40 Mins
• Credits:
• Handout: Yes

Abstract:

Breastfeeding brings along many health benefits for parents and child but the practice in many countries falls short of achieving the World Health Organization (WHO) directives due to various challenges. Existing information and communication technology solutions promise to tackle barriers to breastfeeding, e.g., by providing self-administered breastfeeding education, and have shown some success in improving the theoretical knowledge. However, there is room for improvement, for example, by offering educational content that examines the lived experience of breastfeeding through games or playful interactive experiences that could also engage partners and wider society in the process. Drawing from our exploratory work, we present the potential and limitations of playful technology in support breastfeeding and suggest two main opportunities for playful technology design: 1) immersive first-person breastfeeding experience for expecting parents and 2) playful systems that portray the needs of newborns. We will give a glimpse into the design and development process of a virtual reality breastfeeding experience, together with a demonstration of our initial low fidelity prototype system.

Learning Objectives: