The Embrace comes in two varieties, an electric model and one that uses hot water; each works under the same principles. Either by using electricity or hot water, a pouch filled with a wax is heated. Then, the pouch is placed in a sleeve within the Embrace, where for up to six hours it maintains the 98.6F temperature low birth weight babies need to survive. Each Embrace also contains phase-change material which absorb’s the baby’s heat if he or she gets too hot and warms the baby up if he or she gets too cold.
The Embrace, which tested successfully in rural India, has the added benefit of being significantly less expensive than a traditional incubator. This makes it especially valuable in rural or low-income areas that otherwise would lack any way to care for a low birth weight baby. Chen has teamed up with non-governmental organizations to donate a number of Embraces to their target communities. Embrace also operates a humanitarian program called Emergency Embrace, which lends the product to organizations where the need is particularly severe, but otherwise short-term.
The statistics of the babies in need are staggering: of the twenty million premature and low birth weight babies born each year, four million die within the first four weeks of life. Because premature babies have so little fat to regulate their body temperature, they are more susceptible to life-threatening conditions like hypothermia. Chen estimates that in India alone the product can save thousands of lives, and it already has saved as many as three hundred at-risk babies. At this point, it is a matter of funding to expand Embrace’s reach even farther.