The Embrace Warmer is an inexpensive, portable warming blanket designed to regulate the temperature of preterm infants in the absence of incubators. The Embrace Warmer is a small sleeping bag with a removable WarmPak that is heated and then inserted into the bag. The WarmPak contains phase change, a waxy material that retains and releases heat gradually over a six hour period. The slow heat release is crucial in preventing hypothermia, one of the leading contributors to neonatal mortality worldwide.
The warmer was designed by Embrace Innovations, a non-profit with a mission to advance maternal and child health by delivering innovative solutions to the world's most vulnerable populations.
Embrace attempts to address the issue of high infant mortality rates in the developing world by replacing expensive traditional infant incubators with the Embrace Warmer. The innovative technology requires no constant electricity – the warmer only requires intermittent access to energy to heat the Warmpak. The warmer is cost effective, and eliminates most operating requirements so that it can be used in almost any situation or setting.
Premature infants struggle to regulate their own temperature because they lack the necessary amount of body fat, and mothers and healthcare workers in developing countries don't always have access to hospital incubators that could help the babies survive.
The Embrace Warmer costs less than one per cent of the price of a standard incubator, and it is durable, portable, and easy to use.
Jane Chen, the founder of Embrace, developed the product in India, which has 40 per cent of the world's premature babies. She worked there for four years to further develop and distribute the product. Embrace Warmers is now used across the developing world in countries such as Haiti, Uganda, Myanmar and Mozambique.
