Embrace, $25 premature infant incubator for the developing world, by Razmig Hovaghimian
Embrace aims to reduce the mortality rate and improve the health of low-birth-weight and premature babies in resource-limited settings through a low-cost infant incubator.Every year, 20 million low-birth-weight (LBW) babies are born; 3.5 million of them die, and those that survive often grow up to have low IQ, early onset of diabetes, and heart disease. A large number of these problems could be avoided by providing thermal regulation to these babies, which is the primary function of an incubator. The problem is that traditional incubators are often available only in major urban hospitals and clinics; even when hospitals do have these devices, they are largely in disrepair. Furthermore, a large portion of the population of developing countries lives in rural areas, where incubators are simply not available, given their high price point and the fact that they require electricity. Rural parents often do not have the resources to travel to urban hospitals to access an incubator. Given these constraints, current solutions are in-home remedies. Popular methods to take care of premature and LBW babies include wrapping hot water bottles around their bodies or placing them in ovens. These solutions are unsafe, causing many infants to die who would have had a high chance of survival given proper medical devicesEmbrace is a sustainable non-profit organization that produces a $25 incubator designed to work in a primary healthcare center or at home. The product is an extremely cost-effective incubator device that requires no electricity and provides heat to an infant at a constant temperature, the key factor needed for survival. It has no moving parts, and is designed to work in rural healthcare centers and households. The device works for over four hours at a stretch without intervention. The device also it facilitates and complements the widely practiced technique of 'kangaroo mother care', thus enabling mother-baby bonding.Embrace’s approach to disseminate this product is through government health centers and community organizations, partners that will be critical in helping us to educate our target populations. Embrace was founded by volunteer graduate students and alumni of Stanford, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, with degrees in business, public policy, and engineering. Most recently, the team has won the Echoing Green fellowship and BASES Social eChallenge. Embrace's advisors are from the Stanford Hospital, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard University and IDEO. Two of the Embrace co-founders are moving to India by September to work on clinical trials (in parallel with the FDA process in the US) and to prepare for our launch. More information at embraceglobal.orgAny and all support you can provide will go directly into the R&D, manufacturing and development of Embrace. Thank you for your time and consideration - team embraceTags: africa, Asia, design, developement, device, Health, incubator, India, infant, infant mortality, MDG, millennium development goals, mortality late, product, StanfordMembers: 1
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