Incubators are super expensive to manufacture — we’re talking nearly $50,000. Plus, they’re bulky and difficult to transport. But the winning invention of this year’s James Dyson Award is about to change both of those things.
After learning how many premature babies die in the developing world because of a lack of resources, Loughborough University graduate James Roberts decided there had to be something he could do about it.
“I was watching a Panorama program on BBC about Syrian refugees, and they had a segment about how there are loads of premature kids dying because of the stresses of war and specifically the lack of incubators out there and the infrastructure to support them,” he told the BBC.
So he created an inflatable incubator called the Mom , which is delivered in separate, flat pieces assembled at their destination. Here’s how it works: inflatable panels are blown up manually and heated by a ceramic element. They’re housed within a sheet of plastic that wraps around the inside of the incubator. Temperature, humidity and a phototherapy lamp used to treat jaundice are controlled by a small, easy-to-use Arduino computer. And all of this is designed to use minimal electricity, and can even run off a car batter for over 24 hours.
Perfect for care packages sent to refugee camps, this incubator is a game changer. One that’ll only cost about $400 to manufacture.
“In resource-poor settings, the cold is one of the biggest killers of babies that are born slightly premature,” said pediatrician Martin Ward Platt of Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. “And in a refugee camp, where it may be necessary to separate a baby from her mother, this provides a fantastically elegant and cheap solution.”
Not intended for severely premature babies, the Mom strips away the bells and whistles of hospital incubators (which are designed to accommodate babies with as little as a seventh of a normal birth weight and may need weeks or months of care in a NICU). With the £30,000 award, Roberts plans to continue work on the Mom, which he hopes to complete by 2017.
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