Designing and phototyping of a portable cradle infant warmer

Abstract

When premature and low birthweight babies are born, they lack the body fat that is necessary to regulate their temperature, therefore, room temperature can quickly cause the newborn babies’ temperature to drop up to less than 36.5 degrees Celsius and may lead to neonatal hypothermia. Data from Rwanda demographic health survey have listed hypothermia as one of the leading causes of neonatal deaths in Rwanda. One of the existing methods used to keep the baby warm in hospital are linked with different disadvantages, healthcare providers use infant radiant warmers and incubators to prevent newborn hypothermia, however, such equipment are very expensive and not affordable by health facilities, hence there is an emergency need of alternative option to maintain newborn’s normothermic. As a way of delivering innovative, effective, and long-term solutions to this serious problem, the researcher has designed an inexpensive portable cradle infant warmer device which is made of 4 main components which are cradle bed, warmpack heating table and temperature display unit. When this device was tested, the results have showed that the device is designed in a way that it can keep the baby's temperature in the normal range of 36,6 to 37.4-degree Celsius for about one hour and thirty minutes before reheating the warmpack. Based on the results found, the researcher can conclude that, the new thermoregulation device is affective device to keep the newborns warm promote both mental and physical growth of neonates , ultimately can be the best alternative to replace existing methods to keep premature and low birthweight babies warm in the future since it has more benefits compared to existing methods in terms of safety, cost, portability and easy manipulation and it will help to minimize the mortality related to hypothermia in affected babies who does have any other birth problem like respiratory distress or needed phototherapy.