By Laurent REBOURS
Published on
Arnaud Biezanek’s invention is one that could easily be placed in the box of all these simple innovations that you simply had to think about!
For this orthodontic specialist from Chartres (Eure-et-Loir)the trigger came from being fed up with seeing so many toddlers’ mouths to be rebuilt after years of ” late non-nutritive sucking”. Added to this was the arrival of its own children transformed into beta testers and then also from a desire to bring sense to his professional path. She took the form of a weaning teat called Clipp®.
A very positive word of mouth for its pacifier
His invention is not yet on everyone’s lips but it is already in a lot of children’s mouths.
In those of the family circle, friends, friends of friends, colleagues… “and frankly all the feedback is ultra-positive,” rejoices Arnaud Biezanek, even citing “a neighbor who told me about it, with tears in her eyes, when she discovered her son’s pacifier that had been left in his bed.
For the newborn, sucking is a reflex
Sucking, in the newborn, is in fact a spontaneous reflex which allows him to to feed but also to calm down.
The use of a pacifier remains the most recommended, but for all that there are few devices that then allow a gentle weaning. It is on the basis of this observation that the Chartres company of Arnaud Biezanek, Orthodontic’s and Neo 3D created a teat with flangesClipp®, allowing gradually reduce the material to be sucked.
Arnaud Biezanek has been a specialist in medical devices and orthodontics for more than twenty years. Today, he leads a team of seventeen employees.
We do custom patches for so many kids, about 90% of our surgeries. When I had my own children in 2015 and 2017, I started to really think about my own profession and everything that, upstream, involved so much need for orthodontics.
The damage of late sucking
A reflection that led him to look into the question of late non-nutritive sucking. “Why not do prevention in this area? »
The pacifier turns out to be the least harmful practice as he can easily see:
We have deformations in the mouths of children resulting from thumb sucking, cheeks, lips, mouth… the damage is substantial and leads to growth defects, speech problems…
So he puts his children to work with the idea that the pivotal period is between 2 and 3 years because beyond that the damage can be much more complicated to recover.
Stop at the right time and gently
The idea is to manage to ensure that the child stops not only at the right time but above all gently to avoid the trauma of a forced, brutal stop.
Exit the radical methods based on unpleasant products, throwing it away, forgetting it on the highway or even entrusting it to Santa Claus… “because very often if there is a lack, the child will find a palliative like it’s worse here,” says the orthodontist.
In the Top 3 for child attachment are the parents, the comforter and the pacifier. The last two entering the psycho-affective sphere of the child and becoming transitional objects to fight against the anxieties of the little ones.
A pacifier has a suction tip but this tip prevents the tongue from having a high position on the palate which leads to its formation. By remaining in a low position, it leads to growth retardation.
Seven years of gestation for Clipp®
After seven years of research and development, Clipp® finally saw the light of day in early 2022.
CE medical device without BPA (bisphenol A) and certified in accordance with the standards and regulations in force, this pacifier is based on extremely simple use.
Indeed, over time, the five collars provided stack on top of each other. They are locked by a patented, non-removable system, which also promotes child safety.
All of the production is carried out in France and the packaging is carried out in a French work assistance establishment (ESAT) located in Chartres in order to participate in the solidarity economy.
Launched via a crowdfunding campaign in December 2022, Clipp® obtained a nice
110% financing as well as a hundred orders via its website. A pre-series of 10,000 copies has been launched to date.
One collar every seven days
Arnaud Biezanek’s idea is quite simply to add collarettes at the rate of one every seven days for weaning in about a month.
With the gradual addition of these collars, the suction nozzle gradually decreases, which means that the child is forced after a while to hold his pacifier so that it does not fall but as he uses his hands , she falls on her own.
And above all, it is the child of himself who grows tired of sucking and therefore does not want to go to the thumb “You can’t replace one addiction with another”!
The tongue naturally finds the palate which facilitates diction.
Arnaud admits to being still flabbergasted to see the proportions of fittings that could be avoided with gaps in the mouth, jaws too far back…
In 2023, the year of development
The launch took place at the end of 2022 and 10,000 copies have been produced for the moment for sale on the site. Clipp® with a price of 19.90 euros. “We wanted a controlled price even if the production costs were substantial, such as the molds for example” notes its designer.
Its objective, for the year 2023, is to extend the network and in particular to reach pharmacies.
Arnaud aims to see his invention grow, but not only for the success of the project as such:
The idea is that it can go much further still, in a public health approach, that we are really in prevention. When you see, for example, some huge pacifiers put on the market, very colorful, fun, you might as well say that children end up with huge gaps!
Up to 3 years old, everything can be made up for, “everything is quickly reformed”, but beyond that, the children have semesters of orthodontics.
For Arnaud, his project “brings meaning to our profession, we will not be unemployed, just led to develop other solutions”.
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