Infant Clinic and Transport Warmer

Embrace is a sustainable social enterprise that is addressing the issue of global infant mortality through an innovative infant warmer that costs less than 1% of a traditional incubator. It is a new, low cost solution to help keep low birth weight babies’ body temperature warm so they can survive and thrive in developing countries. The system is used to transport newborns from small clinics where they are born, often in rural or semi-urban areas, to referral hospitals, where they can receive appropriate care. The product can also be use as a temperature regulation aide within the clinic.

Embrace, a spin off from Stanford University, knew that they had cutting edge technology in a phase change material; it came to Bang* for world-class industrial design and realisation to market. Because the heater device would be physically and metaphorically at the infant’s side, the goal was to design a device that was soft and approacheable, without compromising on the technology needed to keep the phase change material adequately warm.

The Transport Warmer’s Heater uses an easy-to-service, a necessary attribute for its working environment, assembly of heated plates and positioning and harnessing systems for phase change material packs. The design accurately positions the phase change material pack, ensures uniform heating, while the device provides visual feedback to its thermal status.

Based on a deep understanding of how such products and users will interact with each other, Bang* designed the device so as minimize unit size for easy transport, maximize material to be heated, and allow for monitoring in use.

After 12 months fine-tuning the design, including comprehensive user testing and research into manufacturing methods to reduce costs, the Embrace Transport Warmer was launched in May 2011. From disinterested initial responses from the doctors to the initial conceptual prototypes, the medical community has embraced the product idea wholeheartedly. Embrace will launch the product and business concepts in India, and then roll out to the rest of the developing world.