Could Babies Receive Jaundice Treatment While Being Held?
Jul 28, 2026
Every so often, something comes along that feels like it was made for this community.
The BiliRoo is one of those things. It sits right where two of babywearing’s deepest values meet: the physiology of holding a baby close and the belief that every family deserves access to care, even when a hospital, reliable electricity, and specialized equipment are not nearby.
BiliRoo was invented by Daniel John, a University of Michigan medical student who began sewing early prototypes while studying mechanical engineering at Calvin University. Relatives taught him some of the basics of sewing, and his dorm room gradually filled with baby carriers, sewing kits, and what would eventually become a medical device.
Born in Nepal, John wanted to develop simple, affordable medical devices for places where electricity and specialized equipment cannot always be assumed. The device has since received recognition from the Michigan Business Challenge, the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Rice Business Plan Competition.
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What is the BiliRoo?
The BiliRoo is a wearable kangaroo care sling with a special filter positioned over the baby’s back. The filter is designed to allow therapeutic blue light from the sun to reach the baby while blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation.
Phototherapy uses blue light to help lower elevated bilirubin levels in newborns with jaundice. Conventional phototherapy typically relies on electrically powered equipment. The BiliRoo is being developed as a low-cost, non-electric way to deliver filtered sunlight phototherapy while the baby remains against the caregiver’s body.
The name brings those two pieces together: Bili for bilirubin and Roo for kangaroo care.
The idea is not simply to make phototherapy portable. It is to explore whether treatment and kangaroo care can happen at the same time.
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Why the kangaroo care piece matters
This is the part that will probably feel especially meaningful to babywearing educators.
Phototherapy can require a newborn to spend extended periods under a light source. Although feeding and caregiving breaks may still happen, conventional phototherapy equipment is not generally designed around continuous skin-to-skin contact.
Kangaroo care supports closeness and connection while helping newborns maintain body temperature and physiological stability. Research has also associated it with calming, bonding, and support for milk production, particularly for premature and medically vulnerable newborns.
The BiliRoo asks an important design question: could a baby receive filtered sunlight phototherapy without automatically giving up the benefits of being held close?
Treatment and closeness do not always need to be designed as opposites.
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What has actually been studied?
This is where careful language really matters.
A feasibility study of the BiliRoo was published in Pediatric Research in January 2026. It was a bench study, meaning the researchers tested the device outdoors using light-measuring equipment. No newborns participated in this stage of the research.
The researchers measured whether two different filters allowed enough therapeutic blue light to pass through while blocking ultraviolet radiation. In that bench model, both filters blocked more than 99% of the measured UV-A radiation, and the average blue-light levels reached the threshold used for intensive phototherapy across several carrier angles.
Those results are encouraging, but they do not yet tell us whether the BiliRoo safely and effectively lowers bilirubin levels in newborns. The researchers noted that studies involving infants are still needed to examine temperature, comfort, usability, clinical safety, and effectiveness.
Michigan Medicine reported on June 29, 2026, that the next step was a clinical trial planned for the summer of 2026.
An important distinction: filtered sunlight phototherapy has previously been studied as a treatment for newborn jaundice. What has not yet been clinically established is delivering that treatment through the wearable BiliRoo device.
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What this does not mean
A regular baby carrier is not a treatment for jaundice. No wrap, sling, or structured carrier currently available to families should be presented as a substitute for medical evaluation or phototherapy.
Newborn jaundice can range from mild and self-resolving to medically urgent. Families who are concerned about jaundice should work directly with their baby’s healthcare team and follow the treatment plan they are given.
The BiliRoo is a medical device under development. It happens to use a carried position, but that does not turn other baby carriers into medical devices.
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What it signals for the babywearing field
Perhaps the most meaningful part of this story is not the device on its own. It is the fact that researchers and engineers are taking the carried position seriously enough to build medical technology around it.
Holding a newborn close is not merely sentimental. The baby’s position, temperature, access to the caregiver, and ability to remain connected all have physiological consequences. Those realities are important enough to be considered during the design of medical care.
Whether the BiliRoo eventually becomes widely available will depend on what future clinical research shows. For now, it represents a thoughtful and hopeful question: when we design treatment for newborns, can we protect access to care without unnecessarily designing the caregiver out of the experience?
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Read more:
Medical student’s invention aims to help infants with jaundice
Michigan Medicine Health Lab
Read the BiliRoo bench feasibility study
Pediatric Research
