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 hereare 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.
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.
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.
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.
Posted by Rajan Patel
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:46:00 GMT
About a week ago, everyone suddenly quieted down and listened anxiously as Kamalika, our clinical researcher, took a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. Her voice slowly escalated and filled with excitement during the conversation; by the end she was jumping up and down with joy exclaiming, “We’re on our way now!” like an expectant parent. It was the call we had been waiting for: news that the first eligible low-birth weight (LBW) baby for our clinical trial had just been delivered and was ready to be put into the Embrace Infant Warmer.
We were all elated, considering how hard the team has been working to get to this moment: in addition to getting the product ready, preparing our clinical trial protocol, getting it approved by an ethical review board, and then coordinating the study with the doctors and nurses as the hospital. The clinical trial is comparing the Embrace Infant Warmer’s ability to maintain LBW babies’ temperatures against the current standard of care (including radiant warmers, incubators, and other practices that help babies stay warm).
As soon as she hung up the phone, she, Rahul, and I headed over to the hospital to observe the first baby of the study using our device. While I love the stimulating work atmosphere of Embrace, I was far more excited in this moment than any other. It suddenly struck me that what we’ve been working on for so long for was about to become a reality in use!
Nisha, a 2.3kg, rosy-cheeked baby girl, was placed into the Warmer. Luckily, any tense feelings diffused once she was put into the device. Nisha was initially experiencing cold stress, but was safely brought to normal body temperature after being put into the warmer! Also, our device successfully maintained its temperature of 35°C – 38°C for the full four-hour duration. Nisha had a twin brother who was not low birth weight. Interestingly enough, after she had been placed in the Embrace warmer, we observed that Nisha’s temperature was actually higher than her healthy brother’s. As you can see below, she comfortably slept while in the warmer (I’d be willing to bet it was THE most comfortably she’d ever slept in her life!):
Sleeping cozily in the Embrace warmer
Nisha and her twin brother
She stuck her tongue out in this picture just to be cute :-p
To get to this point, it’s been critical for us to do constant prototyping, testing, feedback, and iteration over the last year.This is even more important and difficult with medical devices such as ours, since the efficacy and safety of the product need to be thoroughly assessed before it can be tested in real use case scenarios. The validity and gratification that came from seeing our product effectively work on Nisha was unparalleled. It has taken a tremendous amount of time and effort from the team, and achieving this huge milestone has made it all worth it. But this is just the start.
As I was sitting in the auto rickshaw leaving the hospital at the end of the day, something suddenly struck me: we are one step closer to getting this product out—in fact, we’re one step away from launching. This early success has been a feeling of relief and fulfillment for us, and has inspired and energized our team to do everything we can to get this product to the millions of babies in need.
We always get touching stories from people around the world who need Embrace, and we wish could save all the helpless babies. I will be periodically share these stories with you so you can see what helps to fuel our drive to get our product to market!
Dear Embrace, I would love to share some of my own personal experiences with premature babies… but the truth is I don’t have any because the majority of these babies are never given a chance to make it out of the hospital. Because there are no incubators the babies are left to die. They are put on a table or directly in the trash to die without even the comforting touch of their mothers in those final moments (these do come from personal stories of people I know). THIS is why I am interested in Embrace. I have been involved in caring for abandoned babies, but I would like to make it known to the hospital here that I want to open my home for premature babies as well. Or at least to offer assistance to mothers with premature/low birth weight babies.
Posted by Rahul Panicker
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:00:00 GMT
I was hoping to see a tiger. But the only indication that we were in a tiger reserve was a huge sign welcoming us to Achanakmar Tiger Reserve. We were in the heart of Chattisgarh, about three hours outside Bilaspur. Our destination - Bamni, a tribal village a few kilometers within the sanctuary. Navigable roads were hard enough to come by, let alone electricity. So you can imagine our surprise when Komal and Elyse spotted a mud hut with a satellite dish antenna sticking out.
I ask our driver to stop the jeep, and go poke around. ‘Koi ho?’ (Anyone home?). A boy, about 13 years of age, steps out. Golu looks at me just as curiously as I look at the antenna. I peer into the courtyard and spy a few solar panels laid out, charging some LED lanterns. Golu proceeds to explain to me that the government provided these lights and panels. I press further. Surely, the government didn’t also give them a satellite dish? Nope. That’s them. So, they have a TV? Yes, it’s inside. Golu invites me in. It’s mid day, and the house is pretty dark. But I see a truck battery charging. Great. But I don’t see any more gadgetry around. The engineer in me is curious - something doesn’t add up.
You see, a truck battery puts out 12 volts DC. A TV needs 220V AC (what you get in the mains). Most homes that have battery backups manage this conversion with a device called an inverter. It costs a few thousand rupees. I don’t see anything of that sort here. Instead of asking more questions, I ask Golu if he could set up the TV. Of course, happy to. Out comes a 15 inch TV. Black and white. There are wires dangling from the back side, and Golu proceeds to hook it up to the battery. I’m still puzzled. Where’s the inverter?? I peer at the backside of the TV. What I saw was sheer brilliance! The TV’s entire internal power supply unit had been ripped out, and in its place was a hole with two wires coming out.
What does the power supply unit of the TV do? It takes power from the mains and converts it to a level appropriate for the TV’s electronics. Which is what? 12V DC. So, instead of converting DC from the battery to AC with an inverter, and converting back to DC with the TV’s power supply, they’d just bypassed the whole process. Brilliant.
And as I’m still taking this in, he brings out a speaker system. And a VCD player. Gingerly ties together the wires, carefully matching polarity. And pops in a VCD of ‘Karan Arjun’, a Bollywood block buster starring both Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. A black and white image appears on screen with the duo dancing in a quarry, music blaring. All of sudden, heads appear near the courtyard. ‘Cinema?’. Neighbors streaming in for the film show. My economist friend was right. TV clearly is a public good.
Another example of the famous Indian Jugaad. Another engineer in the making. Incredible India.
Back in the States we have had a poster presentation in Stanford giving us the opportunity to have our data peer reviewed AND (drum roll!) we have put our first 2 babies in our product to be warmed!
Our first baby girl was born on the 4th of March at 9:45am, and our second baby, also a girl, was born the next morning. The pictures below are proudly hung on our office walls. Depending on the frequency of births, we hope to have put ten babies in our product by the end of this month, and eventually an additional 50 babies for the purpose of this feedback study.
Our pride and joy in this progress stands in stark contrast to the frustrations we feel at our current inability to assist in instances of widespread and urgent need. The earthquake in Haiti still has severe effects till today, and it kills us to read stories such as these from doctors on the ground in Haiti where we KNOW that if we had a ready and tested product, we would be of tremendous value to needy families and save lives. But the fact of the matter is that while we have a technology that the Embrace team has personal confidence in, the product remains clinically untested. Doctors we have contacted in Haiti concur with us that despite the obvious need, now is not the time in Haiti to be experimenting with an untested infant warmer, no matter its potential.
If we went ahead anyway and put our product on the ground in Haiti would we be helping and serving babies in need? Yes we believe so. But for a delicate case like Haiti we will only move if we can do so in a way that is thoroughly responsible and in a way that we can guarantee the safety of babies put in our product.
As an organization we have a deeper duty to the bigger picture. Four million newborns die every year, one million in India alone, mostly from preventable or treatable causes. This is the problem that we are seeking to address, and we hope that the logic of this rationale allows us to make the choices and decisions that are right by those who need us the most, regardless the sick feeling we have when the pictures and e-mail from Haiti come streaming in.
You see, a truck battery puts out 12 volts DC. A TV needs 220V AC (what you get in the mains). Most homes that have battery backups manage this conversion with a device called an inverter. It costs a few thousand rupees. I don’t see anything of that sort here. Instead of asking more questions, I ask Golu if he could set up the TV. Of course, happy to. Out comes a 15 inch TV. Black and white. There are wires dangling from the back side, and Golu proceeds to hook it up to the battery. I’m still puzzled. Where’s the inverter?? I peer at the backside of the TV. What I saw was sheer brilliance! The TV’s entire internal power supply unit had been ripped out, and in its place was a hole with two wires coming out.
And as I’m still taking this in, he brings out a speaker system. And a VCD player. Gingerly ties together the wires, carefully matching polarity. And pops in a VCD of ‘Karan Arjun’, a Bollywood block buster starring both Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. A black and white image appears on screen with the duo dancing in a quarry, music blaring. All of sudden, heads appear near the courtyard. ‘Cinema?’. Neighbors streaming in for the film show. My economist friend was right. TV clearly is a public good.
