Mattel is expected to create a bald doll that will be a friend of Barbie due to a Facebook campaign and petition that grew enormously the last few months.

Photo: a bold Barbie prototype, from Beautiful and Bald Barbie Facebook page

Launched by Jane Bingham, a cancer patient and her friend Rebecca Sypin, whose daughter also had cancer, the ‘Beautiful and Bald Barbie’ Facebook page, was supported by The Gateway for Cancer Research, a non-profit committed to funding innovative research and new ideas for lifesaving treatments. The idea of the campaign is to create a role model for girls who loosing their hair as a result of cancer treatment to help them feel as normal as any girl with hair.

Mattel, which launched a global campaign in February to promote its Barbie, will not be selling the bold dolls at stores, but is donating them to children’s hospitals, other hospitals and the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. According to Mattel, the company wanted to give the dolls to children who would directly benefit from them rather than sell them at retail.

“We’re thrilled,” said Bingham. “Our only disappointment is the limited distribution. Our hope is that the dolls will eventually be on the shelf for anyone’s purchase, for people like me. My young daughter had trouble coping with my being bald. We also want the doll distributed around the world, not just in the US.”

After the ‘Beautiful and Bald Barbie’ began, MGA Entertainment, makers of Bratz and Moxie dolls announced they are also to produce six bald dolls in June.