In 1967, Margaret M. Crane created something that revolutionised women’s life, as they could now find out whether they are pregnant or not by using a little plastic stick, which has evolved in some places by becoming electronic.
The great invention of its time is, however, giving rise to a huge problem in the present. Considering the number of people who use a plastic or electronic home pregnancy test each year in the whole world, it creates billions of kilos of waste. Despite being one of the safest options for people with its quick results, it poses a threat to the environment.
Bethany Edwards and Anna Simpson, co-founders of Lia Diagnostics, decided to do something about it and they now have some good news – a biodegradable home pregnancy kit!
A private affair
It looks similar to a conventional kit, works in a similar way- by putting drops of a pregnant person’s urine in, it shows more than 99% accurate results. But the it is made of natural plant fibres and disintegrates when flushed and biodegrades in 10 weeks. The area that collects the urine sample is bigger than the ones already available, which makes it more comfortable to use. The used material is the same as toilet paper, which is sustainable.
To make the whole product sustainable, it is sold inside a packaging that can be recycled, which has no “pregnancy kit” written outside, attracting as little attention as possible. With the instruction manual only inside the package, there is no way anyone can make out what the product is for. Its features make it discrete, which is helpful to people who might want privacy, much-needed through pregnancy.
The birth of an idea
When Bethany and Anna were pursuing their master’s degree in the Integrated Product Design program at Pennsylvania University, they imbibed knowledge about engineering, design, and business. They had the right environment to experiment and the right thought to go further in their search for hassle-free privacy for women. They started by working on a prototype and learnt on the way.
Developed by initially amateurs, a lot of effort and time went into the process of making Lia Pregnancy Test a reality. The duo conducted multiple surveys to get an idea about how the conventional device is supposed to work and further researched the already available products to continue with their work.
It took them more than a year to turn an abstract idea into a commercially viable product. In 2015, Lia was FDA approved. The product, other than being easy-to-use, biodegrades into compost too. If you want to save it as a memory, that is also totally possible, since practically it is just a piece of paper!
“1987 brought us the first cell phone, the boombox, the Apple personal computer, and the at-home pregnancy test. They ushered in the era of portable, personal devices, changing the way we communicate and how we share news. It has been 30 years since 1987, and these revolutionary innovations have all advanced significantly – except for one: the at-home pregnancy test,” states Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Bethany Edwards.
She adds. “It is the same, stiff, plastic relic highlighted in movies for its lack of privacy – someone sees the positive result in the trash, and breaks the news before you can! Worse yet, they are bulky, expensive, and add two million pounds of plastic and digital waste to U.S. landfills every year. At Lia, we have modernized the pregnancy test, ditching wasteful plastic and unnecessary electronics for a streamlined alternative that is both good for the environment and more discreet for its users.”
Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Anna Couturier Simpson states, “Pregnancy tests account for enough plastic waste to travel from Philadelphia to the Space Station and back seven times. Lia is the only discreet pregnancy test made with zero glass fibers, batteries, plastic or nitrocellulose – elements found in nearly all single-use diagnostics available on the market today. Lia provides the only sustainable solution to-date.”
Mothers-to-be can protect Mother Earth
Bethany Edwards has won several awards like TechCrunch Battlefield Berlin in 2017, TIME Magazine’s Best Invention Award, National SBA InnovateHER two years before that, Temple IEI Innovative Idea in 2014 and many more. In 2019, Lia Diagnostics also won the ADC Awards for the Packaging Design category.
It is inspiring to see these women working for their kind, and also for the environment. They fully acknowledge the permanent waste that a plastic pregnancy kit brings to the landfills for the usage of a couple of minutes. Moreover, the issue of women having their control over their reproductive health and care is something they rightfully take pride in.
Together, the team at Lia is changing the world with their innovation. Next time you want to do a pregnancy test, order a Lia pregnancy test kit and be 100% sure, without hurting the other mother, the Earth.
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