Former Minhamite woman and wool enthusiast Claire Hausler has achieved a paddock to product integration with her manufacture of woollen swaddling bags for newborn babies.
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The swaddling bag uses wool from Italian woollen mill Reda that buys 17.5 micron wool from her family’s Minhamite wool producing property.
Ms Hausler said she thought of creating the swaddling bag when looking for woollen garments and bedding for her baby son.
She wanted to use wool because of its great thermal properties, its breathability and because it was a renewable resource.
“There’s a lot of research about people sleeping better in wool,” Ms Hausler said.
She knew that hospitals liked to swaddle babies so last year she created a swaddle sewn into a sleeping bag and called it Merineo.
Ms Hausler, of Melbourne, trialled Merineo at Knox Private Hospital in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs that found babies slept well in the swaddling bag.
The hospital has since decided to give the Merineo as a gift to hundreds of newborns. Ms Hausler also sells the Merineo online.
Marketing for the Merineo stepped up last month when her wool fabric supplier Reda included it in the huge Milano Unica textile trade show in Italy.
Merineo was selected because of its innovative use of wool mesh fabric. Milano Unica is Italy’s biggest textile trade show and has hundreds of products on show.
Mrs Hausler said woollen products were a big feature of this year’s Milano Unico that had a focus on sustainable textile production.