Low-cost cardboard incubator for emergency newborn care

An affordable solution to emergency neonatal care in regions where access to life-saving equipment is limited.

In remote regions of developing countries, the healthcare infrastructure can be limited, and we recently wrote about a smart necklace that aimed to improve child vaccination rates in India. Now BabyLifeBox is a low-cost solution to emergency newborn care.

Targeting grassroots healthcare in India — where 300,000 infant mortalities occur each year — student Malav Sanghavi from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art designed the BabyLifeBox for emergency care of infants born prematurely or underweight. The initial design meets the basic requirements of a neonatal incubator while using the lowest cost materials available, mostly cardboard, perspex and a simple heater. BabyLifeBox will begin a crowdfunding campaign soon, and potential pledgers can sign up to receive updates.

Could other low-cost devices help improve healthcare in remote regions of the developing world?