Founded by teams from Stanford and Harvard, the nonprofit firm Embrace is fighting to help the 20 million low-birth weight and premature babies born every year around the world. They’ve developed an innovative infant warmer that works without a constant supply of electricity and costs less than $200 — a fraction of the price of existing warmers that can cost thousands of dollars.
GE Healthcare today announced a global partnership with Embrace to distribute the warmer, which looks like a small sleeping bag and can help keep a baby warm for hours. Embrace and GE are working toward launching the product in India in the first half of 2011 and will then move to other parts of the world.
In the video below, Embrace’s co-founder and CEO, Jane Chen, explains the technology, which involves heating a sealed pouch of wax that goes in a compartment of the warmer. The pouch is heated via an electric heater. Within 20 minutes, the wax heats to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a critical temperature for a child’s survival. The wax will keep the bag warm for at least four hours with an indicator signaling when it’s time for reheating.
One of the major contributors to death and illness in infants is hypothermia, a reduction in core body temperature below 95° Fahrenheit. As this Embrace video shows, attempts to keep babies warm in developing countries are often either ineffective or offer potential dangers.
Embrace from Linus Liang on Vimeo.
GE’s work with Embrace is part of it’s healthymagination initiative, which is about “reducing cost while improving quality and access through local solutions like this one,” said Mike Barber, Vice President, GE healthymagination.
In alignment with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), GE is focusing its efforts on MDG 4, “reducing by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate by 2015.” GE is concentrating its efforts on helping the nations that face the longest road to meeting this goal, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa.
Embrace’s Jane Chen will appear on ABC’s 20/20 tomorrow night (Dec. 17, 2010) at 10pm ET as part of a year-long series on the top issues in global healthcare.
* Read more about Embrace in: Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Boing Boing, London Times, and National Geographic
* Read today’s announcement
* Read more healthymagination stories
* Read “Helping East London Double its Maternity and Newborn Center”
