According to the World Health Organisation, around 1.5 lakh infants in India lose their lives to birth asphyxia every year. Nearly half the number of child deaths in the country are due to premature births and lack of incubators. The machines needed to help keep newborns cool have a price tag of `15 lakh and more. Most Indian hospitals do not keep them, as they are considered to be too expensive.
Niranjan Thomas, head of the neonatology department at Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore and his team, had started work on how to treat birth asphyxia. They came across phase change materials and wrote to manufacturers Pluss Advanced Technologies, Gurgaon, to collaborate with CMC. Thus, the MiraCradle-Neonate Cooler, which costs `1.6 lakh, was born. To create awareness about the therapeutic hypothermia treatment, Pluss Polymers has partnered with 16 hospitals across India to help train health professionals using MiraCradle. The device has three layers and works as cradle, holding a gel bed which enhances conduction to the baby lying on it. The bed’s middle layer brings the temperature down to 33 degrees and the bottom layer, which comprises three units of phase change material, gradually cools the child.
Another product made from the same phase-change material used in MiraCradle is the primary element of Embrace Nest, a low-cost infant warmer as an alternative to expensive incubators. The project for its initial design happened in Stanford with two Indians, Rahul Alex Panicker and Naganand Murty, as part of a four-member team. The device that costs only around `15,000 uses the phase change material inserted into a small electrically heated cocoon to keep the infant warm for up to six hours.