Baby Think It Over Doll - Works Great

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Baby Think It Over Doll In Great Working Condition Model M980021000679 You are bidding on a " Baby Think It Over Doll " in working condition. This is the doll only. What is it, and how does it work ? The Baby Think It Over infant simulator was born in 1993, the brainchild of Richard Jurmain, an aerospace engineer in southern California who had lost his job and was looking for a way to feed his family. He got the idea for Baby after watching a public television program on sex education for teenagers. Young women in the program carried bags of flour to simulate babies, but bags of flour, as he noted to his wife, do not wake people at night. "So make one that does," she replied, and he did. Once Mr. Jurmain obtained a patent on Baby, he made 40 himself, working in his garage. When orders started to accumulate, he contracted with an organization that uses physically handicapped workers to make the infant simulators. He maintains that the main lessons learned from Baby are not about values but "sleeplessness". And sleeplessness, he observes, "is a compelling rationale for not getting pregnant." The infant simulator is a lifelike, life-size (20 1/2 inches) vinyl baby weighing 6.5 pounds. It is anatomically correct and available in both sexes and five different ethnicities. An internal computer simulates an infant crying at realistic, random intervals 24 hours a day. Intervals can be adjusted from 15 minutes to 6 hours for a normal, cranky, or particularly easy to care for baby. The "parent" is given a non-transferable key attached to a hospital bracelet on his or her wrist that must be inserted in the Baby for a specific length of time to simulate feeding, bathing, diaper-changing and comforting. Care sessions last from 5 to 35 minutes. If the "baby" has been properly cared for, it will coo to signal the end of the session. If it is neglected (allowed to cry for more than one minute) or handled roughly (dropped, thrown or struck), tamper-proof indicators on the computer will alert the instructor. A drug-affected model, smaller in size, has the additional feature of simulating tremors due to withdrawal from a mother's drug addiction during pregnancy. When Jaime Mercado, principal of Palomar High School in Chula Vista, California saw a newspaper article about the Baby Think It Over infant simulator, he decided he had to try it. First he tried it on his own daughter and then in his school, which has a large percentage of "continuation" (or "problem") students who are vulnerable, needy, and at high risk of pregnancy and sexually transmissible infections. Because of the school's "continuation" status and relatively small size with only 450 students, Mr. Mercado feels that he has more flexibility than he would in a mainstream school. Since 1994, caring for the Baby Think It Over infant simulator has been a classroom assignment for the 10th grade "Social Living" course at Palomar High and a requirement for graduation. Students may take Baby home overnight or on a weekend and are required to keep a journal. Student reaction to the infant simulator has been very encouraging. "I don't want babies; I'm gonna wait," is a fairly typical response of those who have experienced caring for Baby. Mr. Mercado sees the infant simulator as a good teaching tool, "better than an egg or a sack of flour." Does it actually work? More than one million teens have used Baby Think It Over since its creation in 1993. As of 1998, over 40,000 infant simulators have been sold in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. Recent studies have shown that the use of Baby Think It Over is more effective in changing the attitudes of adolescents toward parenting than other popular strategies such as shadowing a teen parent for a day. Reductions of up to 50% in the rate of teen pregnancy have been reported by some schools and teachers who have used the infant simulator. Baby Think It Over has received several major awards, including the What's New in Home Economics "Healthy Living Award" ... read more

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