The Leeds dad making special teddy bears to help sick children feel better

A dad from Morley, Leeds, has launched a new business making bespoke teddy bears for poorly children to help them feel better.

His teddy bears with health conditions have become an internet sensation amongst parents of vulnerable children and play therapists alike.

Nick Hardman, 37, works in industrial automation and likes to use his 3D printers in his spare time to create other objects on the side.

At the beginning of the pandemic, he used his 3D printers to produce 12,500 items of PPE to help stem the shortage that was seen across care homes and NHS hospitals.

Once supply began to level out for PPE, he then looked for a new project and came up with the idea to start making toys for sick children instead.

Soon after setting up his 3D Toy Shop, he received a request from a parent of a child with hydrocephalus to create them an accessible toy.

So, after doing some research and discovering the condition – in which an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid occurs within the brain, typically causing increased pressure and headaches – is often regulated with the use of a shunt valve, Nick set about doing just that.

The father of two designed and printed off a teddy-sized valve, then went about fitting it to the bear so that the child’s toy would be just like them. After sharing it online, the post went viral – with over 68,000 commenting to praise his ingenuity.

That was in X. By October, he had over 100 requests for teddies with shunt valves – so set about getting the products tested to guarantee they were safe to be played with by the vulnerable children who wanted them.

He set up a fundraiser and found a lab to test his toys and plastics, refining the design to make sure it was compliant with toy standards before shipping the bears out to their new families.

Listed on Etsy, the shunt valve teddy bears have now been shipped right across the world to customers in far-flung countries like Australia and America.

Nick continues to take requests for accessible toys, and has gone on to create a bear with a tracheostomy valve and another with a Berlin Heart called Eddie the Teddy. 1.2-metre bear Eddie is destined for Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he will be taken into the care of one lucky child.

Having received a lot of interest from hospitals and from play therapists seeking new ways to normalise disabilities for children, Hardman’s ext plan is to set up a not-for-profit 3D printing business going forward with more machines to help him supply directly to hospitals.