Embrace Blog

Baby products that give back to nonprofits...including Embrace!

Posted by christina Mon, 11 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

When buying baby shower gifts, or for any holiday for that matter, I always ask sales associates if they know of any products that give back or donate a portion of their proceeds to charity.  Surprisingly, the answer is always ‘No’.  We’ve decided to put together a list of baby products that give back…to different organizations including Embrace!  So here are some of Embrace’s favorite products –

Our exciting and first corporate partner, Million Dollar Baby (MDB) has committed to helping Embrace because children are their priority. But many children around the world are less fortunate. Some precious babies might never have a proper place to sleep, much less a safe and stylish nursery. This is why MDB has committed to giving back – back to the children of the Embrace.  Partnering with Embrace allows MDB to support an organization that touches infant’s lives but also families and communities around the world.

 One of the many ways Million Dollar Baby has shown its support for Embrace is through the development of their Snuggle Wrap.  A modern day swaddle blanket that was inspired by the actual Embrace warmer. Even more exciting is that for the entire month of July, MDB has offered an exciting promotion for Embrace readers only that provides 20% off the Snuggle Wrap.  Just use promotion code EMBRACEBABY at check out.

MDB has contributed a generous $10,000 donation and are also donating a portion of the proceeds from their Babyletto line to Embrace.  MDB has two new stylish products – The Nara and Kyoto Gliders.  Both are modern versions of a rocking chair, sleek and simple.  Both are made of a water-repellent and stain-resistant microsuede, perfect around babies, and are detailed with a hand-sewn piping accent with a solid wood base.  Beautiful furniture that gives back. 

Price : $60 - $600

Shop here: http://shop.babyletto.com/

Saffron Press has debuted their next book, Dreams of Hope. Inspired by global mantras of peace, the book takes a father and his daughter on a dream journey that explores the beauty of the world. The book teaches children the importance of acceptance through teaching the word ‘goodnight’ in multiple languages, showcasing a travel guide of world peace monuments, and also includes a keepsake feature page to record dreams of hope for children. A portion of its proceeds benefits Embrace.

Price: $16.95

Shop here: http://www.saffronpress.com/doh.html

Skip Hop’s products are ridiculously adorable.  They have matching animal toys, and bathtime and mealtime friends that are great for children’s gifts. Check out the backpacks that are BPA and PVC free, particularly the cutest Bee, Penguin, and Owl designs. A portion of its sales benefits charities that give back to parents and children including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Baby Buggy, and the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

Price: $20+

Shop here: http://www.skiphop.com/product/zoolunchies.html 

 
Lastly, Toms shoes. A pioneer in the buy one, give one space, Toms shoes are super comfortable, come in practically any color, are affordable, AND for every pair you purchase, Toms will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. Since 2006, Toms has given over 150,000 pairs of shoes to children around the world. Its new faux lace up and nautical inspired shoes are cute enough to buy on their own, but I can also help buy shoes for a child too. Similar to Saffron’s Dreams of Hope book, Toms aims to inspire a generation that will grow up with the idea of giving and philanthropy as a standard in their livelihood.

Price: $34 - 70
Shop here: www.TOMSshoes.com

Happy Shopping!

-Christina

Tags baby, children, dollar, Embrace, gift, gifts, kids, mdb, million, present, products, showers

Index Design 2011: Unveiling Embrace's Design Minds

Posted by Ana Manzur-Allan Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:52:00 GMT

Embrace was recently selected as a finalist for the world’s most prestigious design award, INDEX: 2011.  This September, a total sum of 500,000 Euros will be awarded to five winners of the five categories: Body, Work, Home, Play and Community during the Copenhagen Design Week.  Embrace is proud to have been selected as a 2011 Body finalist and our team is thrilled to be competing with some amazing designers.  This is a great opportunity to unveil our talented designers.  I’ve asked them each a pointed question about design thinking and what it means to be selected as a finalist for the world’s most coveted design prize.

Enjoy!

Ana Manzur-Allan,

Business Development Manager @ Embrace.

  Ana: Somebody said that to be an effective designer for social impact, we need to be humble listeners and fearless leaders, all at the same time, which is no easy feat. What are your thoughts on this?

Eu-wen: The person who said this was Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design and she is absolutely right. One of the key difficulties we face in our work is that the vision we have of the future, the vision that inspires and drives us in our work, is a fiction that many of our users and external stakeholders find difficult to be able to share with us. Our users grow up under severe resource constraints, and tightly circumscribed sociocultural norms. Opportunity to dream of something better is a luxury that we take for granted, but is often not even a rewarding exercise for people like our users because more often than not, that is exactly what it turns out to be for them - a dream. 

Thus it is rare for us to be able to effectively co-create with our users, especially under the kind of pressing timelines that we put on ourselves (change should have happened yesterday, and I am impatient). The only viable strategy to create effective design for social impact, is then to carefully understand our users as best we can, in ways that they might not even be able to imagine themselves because we are imagining them interacting in a future with a new product that does not really exist yet. It then becomes our terrifying responsibility to take this understanding, and boldly make design decisions on behalf of our user. I guess I actually would tweak Pilloton’s statement to say "bold" rather than "fearless" because especially where Embrace is concerned, developing medical devices for social impact, failures in our design’s usability can lead to exposing infants to more harm than good, and so it is with no small amount of both boldness and trepidation that I craft my design.

The nutshell is this: Designers and engineers generally do not come from poor villages. They thus need the humility and tremendous empathy to understand their users who come from completely different backgrounds and often utilize very different mental models to understand and frame their world. Bold leadership is thus especially necessary when you consider how audacious and presumptuous one must be to create a design for people so unlike yourself.

Ana: How does design thinking co-exist with emerging innovation paradigms such as working directly with the end user? How important is it for humanitarian and/or social design?

Rajan: Working directly with the end user is important in all design but especially so for social design. It is obvious that good products are ones that have features, functionality, aesthetics, and usability that please the end user – it’s what influences them to adopt and use those products.

However, this is usually a bit easier for most designers because the designers are often end users themselves. For example, when designers and engineers make a new phone, they inherently understand what the users look for because they use their cell phones everyday and have vast experience and understanding on what the needs are and what would make a good design. I can only imagine if someone like my grandmother, who is not an avid user of a cell phone by any means, were to be in charge of designing a cell phone. For example, I have noticed the need to easily dial a phone number when someone texts it to me (rather than having to memorize it and then type it in to dial), but there is no way my grandmother would think of this need or feature herself (and even if I explained it to her, I’m not sure if she’d really understand it). She would likely end up designing a super simple phone with very little functionality and with large, tactile buttons that are easy for her to press. If I were forced to use this cell phone, which was designed by someone else and for someone else, I would be pretty unhappy because it does not meet my needs or desires. Unfortunately, that is what we often see in our work – medical devices designed for the needs and requirements in the western, developed world are being marketed and sold in the developing world. Embrace aims to fill this gap by making appropriately designed solutions for our end users by better understanding their environment, context, and needs.

When I think of the ludicrous idea of putting my grandmother in charge of designing a cell phone for me, I often feel like that is very analogous to what my job actually is. We are trying to understand our users and design a product for them even though we can hardly pretend to relate to their lives, struggles, or desires. It is a challenge but also a pleasure. As a designer at Embrace, you are forced to learn so much about people so different from you, which is an eye-opening and inspiring experience. It also challenges us in our work to make the right product so that our users are satisfied. In order to do this, we have to throw away our own assumptions of what might make a good design and instead be all ears and listen to the users and what they want. This itself can be challenging due to language barriers, cultural differences, and the users’ often hesitance to be open with us (due to shyness, intimidation, fear, and the taboos and stigmas that surround the issues we are addressing). However, our passion to understand and ultimately help improve the lives of our users is what fuels us to overcome these challenges, which can only be done through close interactions directly with them.

Ana: When you’re designing for health and survival, the stakes are higher, and the design has to be that much more effective.  What’s your take on this?

Rajan: As I’ve mentioned above, we have some large challenges that can only be overcome through close interaction with the end users. And as with all products, this involves constant user feedback and iteration. Herein lies another challenge – when working on a medical product, you cannot simply make rough prototypes, have users test them, and gain what would be valuable feedback. We have an ethical obligation to ensure that any prototype or product that we put out for testing and feedback has been developed and tested to ensure safety and minimize risk. While it may tempting and beneficial to gather this feedback (especially since we are operating in a market without regulatory and legal constraints that allow us to do this, which many other companies take advantage of), we believe that it is not only our moral obligation to be patient, but that this approach will also lead to a more successful product in the long term.

This also pushes us as designers to think of creative ways to gather this valuable feedback without introducing any medical risk. We make “looks like” and “feels like” prototypes to get feedback on aesthetics and usability from our users without having to test the products on actual patients. We’ve taken our fair share of baby dolls to villages to have mothers, nurses, and doctors get as close to using the product as they can without introducing any risk.

Before making any claims on the efficacy of our product and before releasing it to the market, we thoroughly test our product through bench tests and formal, controlled clinical studies. We understand that to achieve our mission, it is more important to be completely honest than to push our product and ensure it is widely adopted. Through these studies, we learn of the true efficacy of our product, how well it performs, and in which scenarios. Our mission is to help our users and ensure their health, so if we were to not do these studies and instead push our product to be widely adopted, we might be preventing our users from using other products or practices that may be more beneficial to them, thereby going against our mission. These studies also offer us objective feedback on the performance of our products, so we can make informed decisions to design more effective solutions for our users. So although it does take a lot of time, money, and patience, the approach we take to ensure performance and quality is essential for us to achieve our end goal.

Ana: What does the process of design thinking look like?  How would you guide someone through the process?

Nag: Design is not art, but is inherently purposeful and practical – Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but in the hands of the user.

I do not believe designers create a product like artists create art. I rather see designers akin to one of the several agents who nudge and coax variations on a core idea along its evolutionary pathway to perfect adaptation. 

I fundamentally subscribe to the idea of design happening in an analogous way as biological evolution. Order emerges out of chaos through a process of evolution by natural selection (performed by all the key stakeholders that contact the product as it evolves – the designer being just one of the stakeholders). 

The key to good design would therefore not lie in any design philosophy or design methodology, but in a sincere commitment on the designers’ part to adapt their designs as quickly and efficiently as possible to the needs of their key stakeholders. 

In this sense, the good design process is about building non-distorting, objective and fast feedback loops that are very sensitive to the needs of all key stakeholders in the space of delivering a new product – the user, the prescriber, the distributor, the funder etc.

The designer’s role in this process is -  

• To recognize the ecosystem in which the product is to be evolved
• To recognize the stakeholders who will act as agents of selection
• To co-create and continually refine these feedback loops with stakeholders
  
• To listen to and empathize with the feedback generated in these feedback loops
  
• To facilitate the production of non-random, deliberate mutations that can be fed back into the evolution loop

Ana: What does it mean to be selected as a finalist for the world’s most coveted design prize, INDEX: 2011? 

Honey: It is a true honor and extremely humbling! INDEX:2011 demonstrates how design has the power to be part of the solution of major global challenges, for Embrace, this translates to reducing neonatal mortality and morbidity in our world. We cannot wait to hear whether we have been selected, making it this far, for me personally is so rewarding. I am so proud of our team and of our organization. 

Inspirational Courage

Posted by Rajan Patel Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:17:00 GMT

Sujatha is a young mother from the village of Krishnamylur, about three hours outside of Bangalore.

Sujatha’s story is a typical one in India: she has endured the death of all three of her children (hear her story here).

When we met with Sujatha, she talked to us about her dream to raise a healthy child, one that would achieve great things in life. However, Sujatha’s first two children died within two days of birth. One child was born at a government hospital which we saw firsthand. Small, dark, and dirty, the local government clinic even placed babies on the floor due to lack of chairs or beds. 

Sujatha’s second child was born at home, two months premature. She described watching her baby turn blue from being cold. In efforts to warm the baby, her husband built a glass box to place him in and hung a lightbulb on top to keep him warm. But it was simply not enough.

Though the village doctors and her family urged her not to try for another child, she got pregnant with a third baby, having faith that things would be different. After she gave birth to her third child, Vishal, the doctor told her that he would survive no more than two weeks, as he was in extremely poor health. Her family told her that even if he were to survive, he would be disabled and thus be a burden to the family. 

Her response was steadfast: "Then I will work hard and move to the city. I will put him in a school that accepts him and he will grow up to be strong and successful. I will do whatever it takes." After 8 months, Sujatha’s hopes were once again crushed.

Even after the loss of three children Sujatha was not stripped of her hope and courage. She adopted a healthy daughter, who is now 4 years old. And after we spoke to Sujatha, seven other mothers from the village came forward to tell us their stories. We learned that all of them had lost at least one child. Amazingly they also exemplified the same enduring hope.

We showed all these mothers our product and explained Embrace’s mission. After listening and observing one mother spoke.

"If this had been here a few years ago, I could have been a mother. I could have saved my baby. We want make sure this doesn’t have to happen to the future mothers of our village."

While incredibly saddened by these stories, we were also uplifted to see how hopeful, courageous and capable these women were, and how they are desperate to lift themselves out of their current conditions. All they need is the opportunity, and access to basic health care, so they can fulfill their deepest desires to be mothers and to raise children.

As we left the village we asked these women one last question. We asked them if there was anything they wanted us to bring back the next time we came.

Sujatha simply replied, "better healthcare."

We hope our product will fulfill this wish.

Embrace's First Ever Holiday Gift Guide

Posted by Ana Manzur-Allan Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:31:00 GMT

At this time of year, holiday gift guides are not in short supply. At Embrace we are very excited to put out our first ever Embrace Holiday Gift Guide. But instead of highlighting the coolest, latest and most expensive gadgets, we wish to highlight simple, heartwarming, far-reaching, unusual holiday traditions, and un-consumery things and gifts. We’ve asked the folks at Embrace, and this is what we have come up with. Oh! And we’ve also included our far-reaching Embrace Holiday Selection that will help save babies…Happy Holidays!  

Our team of experts recommend:

• I love to read, so what I do is that I select a couple of my favorite books that I’ve read throughout the year, and give my copies to my closest friends.  I include a selection of teas to help them settle into a great book.  Rahul, Co-founder and President of Rural Products.

• I love to give holiday gingerbread cookie ingredients + the recipe in a jar; just mix and bake! Voila! Christina, Business Developent Manager.
  
  
• I have recently gotten into brewing my own beer. This year I’m planning to throw a dinner party for my friends to sample my creation. Linus, Co-founder and COO.

• Write a letter or a haiku poem to a friend - with pen and paper! Then you could deliver it using a fake-Basho voice. Nag, Co-founder and President of Urban Products.
  
  
• My mother still write me letters from Santa – surprise your family members (regardless how old they are) with a letter from the North Pole.  Ho ho ho! Jane, Co-founder and CEO.

• I think anchovies are a great gift that nobody gives anymore! Eu-Wen, Product Manager.
  

• I owe a lot to my family and friends but unfortunately haven’t stayed in touch with many of them as much as I would like to. This holiday season I’m simply going to call up and connect with many of them! And I’ll treat a few lucky ones to a meal at my favorite culinary institution: Taco Bell. Rajan, Product Manager.
  

• Diamonds! But if you can’t afford diamonds - a really nice dinner to a romantic place will do. Kamalika, Lead Clinical Researcher.
  

• A pair of hand knitted socks!  Wooly and warm! Honey, Product Designer.
  

• Give a designer friend, a new set of coloring pens, a sketch book, and a copy of your favorite tunes. Mustaq, HR and Admin Manager.
  

• We always make ciopinno for Xmas dinner and bake the ultimate cheesecake (from Tyler Florence) for dessert.  Christmas has become my husband’s favorite time of the year, because he gets to eat a whole cheesecake by himself!  This year I am including a gym membership along with the cake ;) Ana, Business Development Manager.
  

• When I was little, my mother used to do something very cool for my birthday. The night before, she would spread out lots of hand-cut sparkly confetti all over my bedroom floor. So when I woke up in the morning, I knew it would be a special day! I recommend you do the same for your kids this Christmas - spread out hand-cut paper snowflakes on the kids’ bedroom floor at night, or even hang them from the ceiling, so they wake up to a “snowy” Christmas morning! Esha, Head of Business Development.

• Last but not least, Embrace, has joined forces with like-minded Mom designers to offer the Embrace 2010 Holiday Collection, including premium baby blankets, charms, and holiday cards. With each purchase from our Holiday Collection, profits will help vulnerable infants in developing countries. Help us share the gift of warmth today and share our mission with your loved ones this holiday season.

Premature Awareness Month - Dr. Saudamini Nesargi's Story

Posted by christina Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:28:00 GMT

To finish up Premature Infant Awareness Month, we have a special guest blog post by Dr. Saudamini Nesargi who is helping us with our clinical trials at St. John’s Hospital in Bangalore, India. 

Temperatures in Bangalore have dropped in the last few days and most of us enjoy it. We drink something warm, wear woolen clothes and keep the doors and windows closed. If not, we shiver hope the sun starts shining again soon. But what if you a were little premature baby who could do none of these things…not even shiver to keep yourself warm?What if you had to rely completely on others and often inadequate resources just to keep warm?

Tags baby, doctor, pregnancy, premature, surgery, thankful

Premature Awareness Month - Kalpana's Story

Posted by christina Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:36:00 GMT

 The first five months of my pregnancy were smooth and without incident. At a routine check up at 22 weeks, my physicians and the ambulatory technicians conducting my exam discovered that I was a few hours away from being dilated and going into pre-term labor. If delivered, it would have been extremely unlikely that our daughter would have survived. I was immediately admitted into the hospital. The next morning, I had surgery conducted by one of New York City’s leading maternal-fetal medicine specialists to promote the duration of my pregnancy.

Afterward, the obstetricians guiding my care advised me to take it easy to ensure my pregnancy would last as long as possible. With optimism, positive energy, and a team of clinicians monitoring my pregnancy, we made it to nearly 36 weeks. My daughter was born exactly one month before her due date, weighing 6 pounds and measuring nearly 20 inches. My husband and I were thrilled and relieved that she was in good enough health and weight to avoid admission to the neonatal intensive care unit. We all went home together two days after she was born.

Without dedicated obstetricians, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, ambulatory technicians, and nurses skilled in high-risk pregnancies and deliveries, my daughter probably would not have had the smooth entry into the world that she did. My husband and I are immensely grateful for the high quality care, attention and nurture she received from a team of people trained to promote the survival of newborns. Now 20 months old, our daughter is a reminder of the incredible medical care we were lucky enough to be afforded and drives our commitment to ensure all mothers, fathers and newborns around the world have the same access.

–Kalpana, Embrace volunteer

Tags baby, daughter, doctor, pregnancy, premature, surgery, thankful

Premature Awareness Month - Toby's Story

Posted by christina Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:26:00 GMT

We’ve asked a few Embrace supporters to share stories of their child’s birth to help highlight the fact that prematurity is still a major issue in America, and around the world.  Most of us in America are lucky enough to have world-class neonatal care, but as March of Dimes notes, more newborns die from premature birth than from any other cause. Embrace hopes to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity, please help is spread the word!

Toby’s Story

On November 01, 2008, for no apparent reason and with no time to prepare our son was born three and half months early, Toby, was born at 25 weeks at a U.K. hospital. He weighed 1 pound and 14 oz or 860g. He was transferred to a specialist hospital where he was cared for in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for the first three months of his life. When we arrived at the ICU unit, it was very daunting, but the presence of medical specialists and modern medical equipment was very reassuring for us.

The hours passed and we started to comprehend the implications of his early arrival. As he lay in his incubator for treatment and warmth, there was a constant stream of various doctors and nurses tending to his needs. Toby was tiny, but he often had something attached to every limb for all the different drugs. He needed to receive multiple medical interventions, including, bagging for when his oxygen saturation became too low, they also used medication to close an open duct in his heart, medication for several infections and he needed photo therapy and eight blood transfusions
 
Our little baby boy was on a ventilator for 6 weeks. The treatment used to get him off the ventilator was complicated, but he gradually progressed to only needing nasal prongs. When Toby moved to the high dependency unit, he no longer needed an incubator, but still needed to be kept warm; he slept on a heated mattress.
 
As he got stronger, he was transferred back to the special care unit at the hospital where he was born, during his time there he was transferred back and forth to specialist hospitals for laser treatment in both eyes and a hernia operation, Eventually he was able to do normal things, like have a bath, wear clothes, feed with out a tube and have lots of cuddles. With support from specialists, it took Toby another three months of slow weaning off the oxygen, Toby Finally came home on March 24, 2009! 

Toby is now 2 years old. He is a very happy, healthy, beautiful bouncy boy with a good appetite for food and cuddles. We are very proud of him and immensely grateful for the many medical staff that looked after him. 

–Proud mother and Embrace supporter, Hannah

Tags baby, life, premature, thankful