Hug pillows a novel sleeping alternative
Barrington Parsons was tossing and turning in his sleep. No matter how he tried he could not get a good night’s rest. He rearranged his three pillows hoping that would help him to sleep comfortably but to no avail.
So he decided to create his own pillows, which he calls ‘hug pillows.’
According to him and his wife and business partner, Sandra, the pillow is designed to enhance sleeping comfort and relaxation.
“The Hug pillow cannot only be hugged intimately as comforters, but it can also be placed behind the neck and back as added support,” he told All Woman from his Kingston based business. The pillow has a unique shape with a headrest, embracer and knee pad ú a design that Parsons said came to him after much research.
“It had to be soft enough to lay my head on, hard enough to embrace and long enough to cushion my knee,” he explained. The Hug pillow is shaped like a nine, and is specially made with selected quilted cotton materials. The core contains polyester fibres and is carefully placed in a specific way to perform unique functions such as enhancing sleep. They are available in three different sizes — standard, medium and toddler.
“It is good for me,” says an elderly customer, Lorna Weise. “Sometimes when I used other pillows, it would give me pain in the neck, but with the hug pillow I have not encountered any discomfort. The good thing about it, too, is that it is washable.’
Another customer, who did not wish to be named, spoke of the benefits of the pillows to her, “I find them very comfortable. If you are reading in bed, they serve as a good support for your neck. They are nice to put between your knees and at the same time they provide support for your head,” she explained.
Helene Whyte, another consumer, went even further.
“What I found is that it actually gives added support to my neck and back, I am able to hold it in any position in terms of comfort, because for support I will put it between my knees. With other pillows you would have fold them to get that support for the neck. But this one just fit at the neck,” she said while noting that it helps to align your spine, during pregnancies, and is non-allergenic.
All Woman was unable to find out whether these pillows exceeded the performance of the average pillow or whether it did infact enhance sleeping because of its unique shape and design. Checks with the Bureau of Standards however revealed that there were no defined standards for making local pillows.
The Hug pillow is however a registered product and is in great demand, with a production rate of at least 15 pillows per day.
