Meghna Menon
BSE ’18, Electrical Engineering
In 2015, the World Bank recorded 53.1 infant deaths per 1,000 child births in low-income countries. Studies have shown that kangaroo care (KC), which is defined as skin-to-skin contact between the caregiver and infant, significantly improves health and developmental outcomes for infants. However, many of the current infant incubators and other infant warming devices lack this aspect of skin-to-skin contact. The Initiative is a team developed out of the university student group Michigan-Health Engineered for All Lives (M-HEAL) that is working to combine this method with a standalone incubator device to create a sustainable, low cost hybrid infant warmer for developing areas in the world. This project aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2: By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under five years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce…under- five mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1000 live births. In order to introduce our device into communities that are willing to accept it culturally, The Initiative is working with Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia as well as partnering with the organization Clinic At A Time (CAAT) based in the northern Gojjam region of the country. We currently interface with the UMHS to get active clinician input from nurses and neonatologists to ensure our device will find success in Ethiopia in the coming years. Our team is prototyping and testing our infant warmer device throughout the 2016-2017 year as well as planning travel to meet our community partners in Ethiopia in May of 2017 to collect user feedback. Our Team Website: http://theinitiativeannarbor.weebly.com/ Our Website under MHEAL: http://mheal.engin.umich.edu/theinitiative/
Library Mentor: Leena Lalwani