This Leeds dad makes teddies with health conditions to help children living with medical disorders

From pacemakers to hearing aids, Emily Cope meets the man who makes teddy bears who wear medical devices

Toys can be a child’s most treasured possession, and single father Nick Hardman, 37, is taking that one step further by creating specialist teddies for children with medical conditions.

Working out of his garage in Morley, Leeds, Hardman uses his 3D printer to make shunt valves, tracheostomies, pacemakers, and hearing aids, which can be fitted to teddy bears – so children with medical conditions can have a toy that looks just like them.

“I used to have no idea about all of these medical conditions,” says Hardman, a father-of-two who works in automation.

“My eyes have really been opened to how many children out there are going through something really difficult and don’t understand why they are having to wear a medical contraption that makes them look different to their friends. Now they can have a teddy who looks just like them and they aren’t so alone.”

Hardman first used his 3D printer to create 12,500 PPE items for hospitals when supplies were short at the beginning of the pandemic, but then moved on to making small toys for his two children as well as other customers.

Then, in Autumn 2020, he was contacted by a parent of a child with hydrocephalus – a condition which often requires patients to wear a shunt valve to drain excess fluid from the brain – who asked him to make an accessible toy for them.

“I didn’t know what a shunt valve looked like, but after doing some research it seemed fairly simple to recreate,” explains Hardman. “It took a couple of hours for me to print one, then I attached it to the teddy and uploaded a few pictures to my Facebook page before sending it to the little boy.

One of Nick Hardman’s creations – a teddy bear wearing a magnetic stoma bag and a chest coil

Within days 68,000 people had liked the photos and I started getting dozens of requests for similar teddies. I couldn’t believe it.”

Hardman got to work creating a whole range of medical accessories, which he then attached to various teddies, including one going through dialysis, one with a cochlear implant and a foot splint, as well as a set of Braille dominos for a young girl learning Braille.

“It was a whole new world to me, but I loved it,” says Hardman.

“I realised the toys needed to be safe for the children to play with, so I raised some money and sent them off to a lab to make sure they were compliant with toy safety standards.

“They advised me to make a few changes, such as ensuring the plastic didn’t contain certain chemicals and there were no choking hazards. Then I bulk bought a load of flat pack teddies, which I stuffed in my garage before adding on the medical accessories.”

Soon Hardman was sending his specialised toys all over the world, including Australia, Canada and America, as well as being contacted by a play therapist who suggested he should create a Berlin Heart – an assistant device which is used to take over the function of a child’s own heart when it becomes too weak to pump sufficient amounts of blood around the body, and is often used when children are waiting for a heart transplant.

“When I learnt what a Berlin Heart does, I knew I needed to help,” says Hardman. “I purchased a giant teddy from Amazon, named him Eddie the Teddy, worked out how to do the heart surgery and did the world’s first Berlin Heart surgery on a 1.2m tall teddy bear.

“I wrote to Great Ormond Street Hospital and asked them if they wanted to take care of Eddie until they found a child who needs him.

They said yes, and so I shipped him off the next day.”

Now Hardman hopes to create a not-for-profit business to allow him to buy more 3D printing machines and produce toys on a larger scale so hospitals can purchase a range of specialist teddies from him to help play therapists talk to children about the procedures they’re going through in an accessible way.

“At the moment it’s just a hobby,” explains Hardman. “I print the medical accessories in bulks of around 24, which can take up to 19 hours, and I only charge families £20 for each toy. Thankfully, I’ve had donations made which cover the plastic costs, but I’m hoping to find a toy company who can donate some teddies or dolls.

A teddy Hardman made for a little boy with foot splints, a peg feed and a peg feed machine

“The teddies are a way to explain and normalise operations the children might be having, or why they are suddenly having to wear hearing aids or a shunt valve when before they didn’t need to.

“If they have a certain condition and they have a toy just like them, it helps the children understand what’s going on. I’ve had calls with more than 70 play therapists across the country and from that I’ve been told there aren’t many toys like it, but they’re desperately needed to help these children not only understand why they’re different, but to feel less alone.”

For more information about the toys, visit Nick Hardman’s Facebook page here.

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