1) The document describes several cases of low birth weight babies in India who received life-saving care through the use of an affordable infant warmer called Embrace. 2) The Embrace warmer provided thermal support and extended hospital care for babies whose families could no longer afford the neonatal intensive care unit. 3) This allowed the low-weight infants to gain strength before being sent home, saving their lives when otherwise the families would not have been able to keep them in the hospital.

1. Making critical care affordable

2. Ayesha is a baby girl who weighed only 1.1 kg
(2.5 pounds) at birth. Her father and mother
lost their first two babies due to lack of proper
medical care. They saved every penny they
had so that their third child could be born in a
city hospital, a 4-hour walk from their village.
Ayesha had a very low chance of survival and
was kept in an incubator under observation for
10 days. However, as her parents‟ savings ran
out, it was not possible to extend her stay in
the NICU.
It was at that point that Ayesha was placed in
the Embrace infant warmer for thermal
support. After about a month, she gained
sufficient weight and was able to go home with
her parents.

3. This mother, Shabanam, had an extremely low
birth weight baby, who was kept in the NICU
for eleven days. It was then moved to the
„step-down ward‟ with the Embrace warmer, at
1 kg (2.2 pounds).
Often such babies are sent home, even though
they are still in severe need of thermal
support, because their parents can no longer
afford to keep them in the NICU. Fortunately, in
this case, the Embrace warmer provided an
affordable option to these parents.

4. This is a development organisation that primarily
focuses on rural and tribal healthcare and
education. The hospital provides low costs
medical services for the tribes and the poor.
Puttamma, a nurse here, narrates two instances
where the Embrace infant warmer helped save
two low birth weight babies.
“The first time I used the Embrace device was for
Chinamma‟s baby. The baby was brought to our
hospital from a remote village 60 kilometres away.
It weighed 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds) and was rather
fragile. We kept the baby in the device for about
seven days and it recovered well, which is when
we sent it home. Chinamma‟s family reports that
the baby is doing well and now weighs 3 kg.”
“The second time I used Embrace was for
Sharadha‟s baby, which also weighed about 1.5
kg. This family lived closer to our hospital so we
were able to keep it in the hospital for longer -
about 15 days. The parents were thrilled by the
product and asked if they could take it home.”

5. Lakshamma, the young mother in this
photograph, belongs to a tribe called Lambani.
Her family‟s weekly income is about Rs 200
($4), when there is availability of manual labor
jobs. Her village is situated in a remote area
approximately 24 km (15 miles) away from the
nearest healthcare facility.
Lakshamma‟s premature baby weighed 1.6 kg
(3.5 pounds) and needed thermal support. She
would have found it very difficult to pay the Rs
250 ($5) per day required to keep her baby in
the NICU. Instead, the doctor placed her baby
in the Embrace infant warmer, which costs
patients Rs 75 ($1.5) per day, and helped save
her life.

6. Chetna, a pregnant mother, met with a road
accident and thus was unable to take care of
her seven and half months old, 1.2 kg (2.6
pounds) baby girl. The family was not in a
position to afford three additional weeks of
NICU charges since they had already spent a
lot of money on Chetna's surgery and
treatment.
The doctor decided to place the baby in the
Thermpod for nearly half the NICU charges, for
two and half weeks. Her weight increased to
1.8 kg (4 pounds) and she was then sent home
with her family.

7. Shivamadamma is a young, 20 year old mother
from a village called Siriminahalli, an hour away
from this hospital. All members of her family are
farmers. This 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs) baby boy is her first
born. Due to his low birth weight, he was admitted
to the Neonatal ICU for six days.
The entire family had been very worried when the
baby was born underweight. However, the
Embrace infant warmer provided them an
opportunity to give the baby extended care in the
hospital. After being released from the NICU, the
baby was placed in the Embrace warmer for two
days. During this time, the family grew more and
more optimistic about his health, as his weight
increased to 1.75 kg (3.8 lbs). The time spent in
the Embrace device also allowed Shivamadamma
to bond with her child and gain confidence about
taking him home.
We left a very happy Shivamadamma in the
hospital, cradling her little boy in the Embrace
warmer, excited to take him home.

8. Encouraged by Shivamadamma‟s story, the first
Make this the
Embrace team decided to image of the site IF you
visit her family in their
village. We visited them a month clicked through
are and a half after
from the home page,
her son‟s birth. As per local custom, she was
otherwise, start at the
staying in her parent‟s home with beginning.
the baby, where
she would continue to stay till he was nine months
old.
We were happy to see that her son had continued
to make progress. His weight had now increased to
2.3 kg (5 lbs) and he was feeding well. The
excitement in the house was evident – the family
was doting on the little boy even as his two, slightly
older cousin brothers ran around playfully.
They had started planning for the naming
ceremony for the baby, a major cultural event, to be
held after nine months. This served as a grim
reminder to us about the reality of life for these
families – they refrain from naming their babies for
nine months after birth, lest they lose them.
However, the excited debate around the baby boy‟s
name brought us back to the current happy
situation. Should they name him “Surya” after the
sun, or “Sunil” which refers to God?
We wished them good luck, and the family bade us
goodbye with a generous parting gift of grain from
their field.

9. Kirti‟s baby girl is five days old. She was born
through a C-section, weighing only 1.7 kg (3.7
lbs). Her baby was stable at birth, but her low
birth weight meant that she had to be kept warm
and under observation.
Luckily, the Embrace warmer provided an
affordable option for Kirti to keep her baby warm.
Her little girl has been in the product for the five
days since birth and is in a stable condition.
Kirti had lost her first child a month and a half
after birth. Her voice dropped as she talked about
her first baby. But then she looked down at her
baby girl sleeping peacefully in the Embrace
warmer and her face light up with a
calm, confident smile.

10. The Embrace team visited Kirti at her home a
month after we met her with her baby girl in the
hospital. We were given a warm welcome, and
were pleased to see that the baby girl weighed a
healthy 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) now, having being born at
1.7 kg (3.75 lbs).
Theirs is a large joint family – fourteen people
living under one roof. Although the local custom
is for the new mother to live with her parents for a
few months, Kirti‟s family was very nervous and
decided it was best for her to stay with her
husband and in-laws, where they felt more
confident about providing good care. The cause
for their anxiety is the sad loss of Kirti‟s first child.
It is this anxiety which causes the entire family to
hover around the little girl nervously every time
she cries.
The family has chosen to lovingly call the baby
girl “Chinnu”, until they hold the official naming
ceremony a few months from now. She is the
apple of everyone‟s eye, including her 110 year
old great grandmother, “Ajji”. Ajji‟s loving attempts
to pacify Chinnu, and a little dance of joy she
broke into were two fond memories we left with.

11. Nagamani and her husband are both day
laborers. They have a 4 year old son, and
Nagamani just gave birth to twins – a girl and a
boy.
The twins were born through a normal
delivery, but were severely
underweight, weighing 1.2 kg (2.65 pounds)
each. Fortunately, the hospital had two Embrace
warmers at hand and both babies could be cared
for. They were placed in the Embrace infant
warmer for six days, which helped them maintain
their body temperature and gain weight. The
Embrace device thus provided a way for these
tiny babies to receive much-needed, affordable
extended care in the hospital.

12. This story is very inspiring for the Embrace team.
This is a small facility in Davangere district of
Karnataka state which had absolutely no devices
to keep babies warm. Since most of their patients
can‟t afford care in higher referral hospitals, this
facility ends up taking care of a lot of sick babies.
In the absence of any other options, they would
use a room heater to keep babies warm – a
highly unsafe and ineffective solution.
But the Embrace infant warmer provided a ray of
hope for this facility. It has now become the
standard of care for low birth weight babies here.
This 2.1 kg (4.6 lb) baby girl was born to Laxmi
through a C-section. She was placed in the
Embrace warmer for 7 days, which provided
critical thermal support and set her on the path to
better health.
This is the impact we strive for – empowering
doctors to provide high quality care to their
patients and bringing critical care within
everyone‟s reach.