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Dolls with Down syndrome toy company owner and mother faces critics

It's not every day you hear about the mother of a "disabled" child so motivated by the lack of dolls like her child on the market that she launches her own toy company.

Yet that's exactly the story of Pittsburgh, Pa. mother Connie Feda who has created Dolls For Downs, selling dolls with Down syndrome that look just like her 13-year-old daughter Hanna.

"There’s no doll that looks like me,” remarked Hanna a few years ago.

It was a statement that became the impetus for her mother to create the Dolls For Down company that, despite only officially launching next month, has already sold out its first 1,000 doll order and is taking preorders for the second batch of 1,000, reports the Toronto Star.

Feda initially thought she would sell a paltry 250 dolls online, yet she has received orders from 12 countries, including Brazil, Australia, Greece and Canada.

“We’ve got a lot of pre-orders from Canada,” she tells Global News.

Despite her success, Feda is not without critics. Some experts suggest that creating the dolls adds to the stereotype that every person with Down syndrome looks the same.

“Not every person with Down syndrome has almond shaped eyes, or a single palm crease, or an exaggerated space between thier (sic) toes, or a flattened nose bridge,” writes Krista Flint, former executive director of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS), on her blog, InclusiveHumanity.com.

Kirk Crowther, the current executive director of CDSS, echos similar concerns.

“There is an assumption made by the public that all people with Down syndrome look the same, they all have the same abilities, when really they’re just like the general population," he tells the Toronto Star. "Every person is different and they certainly want to be treated that way."

Naturally, Feda is quick to defend her intentions.

“All Barbies are the same. All Kens are the same," she tells the Toronto Star. "What we’re hoping to do is take that sameness and make it less threatening and have people be more accepting of it.”

She remains proud of her achievements.

“I like to think that because I’m somebody’s mother and not some marketer, that makes my dolls more attractive,” she says.

The dolls sell for $75 and are about 18 inches high, coming in a variety of skin tones and hair colours.

They were created by a doll sculptor in Michigan and a manufacturer in China that have designed 16 male and female versions of dolls.

The dolls are specifically designed to help develop the motor skills of a child with Down syndrome, including large buttons, Velcro and heavy zippers. They can even be customized with a heart scar from surgery -- approximately half of all infants born with Down syndrome have a heart defect.

“They’re age appropriate,” Feda tells ABC. “A lot of times kids with intellectual disabilities are given baby toys. It’s condescending. It doesn’t mean their understanding of what they are is younger.”

Amazed by the success of her dolls, Feda admits being completely emotionally overwhelmed and crying when she received the first doll prototypes last month.

“Nothing could prepare me for how breathtakingly beautiful this doll is, top to bottom, when I took her out of the box,” she tells Babble.