St. George’s “Mother of Invention”
By David W. Smith
Special to the Spectrum
While the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” when it comes to crying babies, it takes a savvy, industrious mother to come up with a new invention that can indeed help comfort the little ones!
As a mother of five children, St. George resident, Raquel Wall knows her way around pacifiers and teething rings as well as the difficulty mothers can face when breast feeding finicky babies.
“Sometimes my babies didn’t want the pacifier and I couldn’t find a way to comfort them…So, I would dip their pacifiers into anything I could find, starting with corn syrup, then maple syrup, and then finally resorting to strawberry jam with my last child!” Raquel Wall described.
Indeed, her improvisational coatings were just enough to keep her babies happy. In fact, not only did the homemade glazes make the babies want their pacifier, it made them suck longer on it. The down side? The pacifier, the baby’s little fingers—and everything the baby touched—would get sticky! Hair, hands, arms, bodies…all had a way of becoming instant self-sticking goo-magnets!
The proverbial light bulb went off inside Raquel’s head one night; what about a spray that was water based, that could be easily sprayed on a pacifier or other teething tool, had delicious flavors that were natural and sugar free, and, avoided the sticky mess?
It was then that the “Baby Blast” was born.
“My husband and I brainstormed on a name for the spray, immediately coming up with what we thought was the perfect name, “Binkie Blast”…unfortunately, we found the word Binkie was actually trademarked to Playtex.,” Wall said. “We settled with the name, “Baby Blast,” and the rest was history!”
In addition to being extremely easy to use on pacifiers, it has been found very helpful in assisting with common nursing problems.
Dr. Kerri Smith, a St. George pediatrician said, “I have countless moms come into the office describing difficulty in getting their babies to take a pacifier or latch on to the mother’s breast. The Baby Blast is a smart and very logical solution for many moms having difficulty breast feeding or getting their babies to take a pacifier.”
The Baby Blast spray contains no artificial colors, flavorings or preservatives, no sugar or alcohol, and the bottles themselves are made of PET #1 with no BPA’s in the plastics. The ingredients are vegetable glycerine, purified water and natural flavors. Each 2-ounce bottle contains approximately 410 blasts per bottle and costs $6.95. Baby Blast is formulated and manufactured in St. George, Utah, and is currently available through www.baby-blast.com. Retailers will begin carrying the product in the coming months.
