Wanda's idea for the nursing nest was born following an emergency C-Section to deliver her first child. She describes the conditions that prompted her invention this way: "My incision hurt, my lower back hurt, my shoulders hurt, and I had Carpel Tunnel from holding him up for so long. I was falling asleep sitting upright on the bed in the middle of the night, and twice I dropped him onto the bed. I couldn’t believe how unsafe I felt dealing with this tiny baby when I was exhausted and hurting."
Inventors often create out of a sense of frustration. Many people feel like there has to be a better way when frustrated, but inventors use that feeling as their source of inspiration.
Wanda was terribly frustrated after the birth of her son as she tried to nurse him. She turned to books and health care practitioners who explained that she could nurse laying down if she used blankets to prop her baby. But even though this helped a lot, she was still frustrated. Here is a excerpt from The Right Sisters describing her moment of inspiration and what she did about it.
The only problem was that for each feeding when I needed to reposition to the opposite breast, I had to shift all the blankets and pillows that I had arranged. One night about midnight as I was nursing Joel Walter, I had this sudden image of what I needed to make this work so much better. I got out of bed as soon as the baby fell asleep and went to the kitchen to find the electric carving knife. Then I grabbed a slab of foam that I happened to have. I didn’t know exactly what the end product was going to look like, but I had a good sense of the shape it needed to be. That night, I created the first prototype for the Nursing Nest.
The thing that distinguishes inventors from other dreamers is their pro-activity. When they imagine a solution; they get to work to make it happen as Wanda Plimmer did. Tell us how you were pro-active in bringing your idea to life.
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