Embrace's hope: to help achieve a Millennium Development Goal, one baby at a time
Posted by Jane Chen
In 2000, 189 countries pledged to reduce the mortality of children under 5 years of age by two-thirds by 2015, as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While significant progress has been made over the last 10 years, neonatal mortality (within the first 28 days of life) still accounts for nearly 40% of all deaths of children.
The situation is especially dire in India, where one out of every 3 babies is low birth weight, and over 1 million babies die every year. I see this harsh reality every time I go into villages here. Last week, I went to Kulumadodi (a village outside of Bangalore), where I met a grandmother, who’s daughter had 3 babies whom died, one after another. The first baby was born in a Primary Health Care Center, where minimal care is offered to babies who suffer from any complications. This baby died three days after coming home. The second baby was born at home, 2 months premature. Without adequate care, this baby also died. The third baby lived until she was 8 months, and then passed away. Imagine what a mother goes through when she suffers the loss of one child—let alone three.
My colleagues went to Rajasthan, in northern India, a few months ago. There, they heard similar stories. Sunila, one of the women they met, had a sister who had a premature baby who passed away, with no medical care available to her. Her brother also had a sick baby, delivered in the village. They traveled for hours to take the baby to the nearest city hospital. But the care came too late, and the baby passed away. It cost this family $200 to place their baby in an incubator. Another man in the village paid $1,000 to place his baby in an incubator. These are inordinate amounts of money for people living in these villages, and they often have to borrow from relatives, friends, neighbors, or take out loans. They financial toll of a having a sick baby is huge, given that no low cost solutions currently exist.
Stories like this fuel our motivation. The first version of the Embrace Infant Warmer will be launched this fall, and it will be orders of magnitude less expensive than what currently exists today. It will provide a means to care for sick babies for those who don’t have one—and drastically reduce the financial burden to parents who will do anything to save their babies. We hope it will allow countries to achieve the goal they so boldly set 10 years ago. And that mothers will no longer need to experience the tragedy their babies dying, one after another.
