A folding incubator developed by a British student has helped save more than 1,500 babies in Ukraine.
James Roberts was just 22 when he developed the technology for his final year project at Loughborough University after seeing a documentary about Syria.
His product, more compact and simpler than conventional incubators, is now saving lives of premature babies born into Vladimir Putin’s nightmarish war.
It can run using battery power, helping Ukrainians who have been the subject of systematic Russian attacks on the country’s power plants and electricity grids.
James, now 31, said: “When you are sent a photograph of someone at the very beginning of their life who has been impacted by something your team has done, it’s indescribably special. All the difficult moments are forgotten.”
The inventor is today due to be awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Princess Royal silver medal.
Seventy-five of his “mOm” incubators are being used in hospitals and bomb shelters across Ukraine. Its ministry of health has just asked for 100 more.
Herve Verhoosel, a representative of the global health organisation Unitaid, said: “The war increases the level of stress in pregnant women, leading to an increase in premature births reported, up to three times more than before the war.” Globally, one premature baby dies every 40 seconds.
Three-quarters of those deaths are preventable with medical intervention such as use of a warm incubator.
For each 1C of body heat a premature baby loses, their risk of dying increases by 28%. After obtaining regulatory approval for his incubator, James realised he needed to act while watching news of the invasion on TV last February.
He said: “I saw terrible reports about what was happening in Ukraine. The entire team did. And we knew we could do something meaningful to help.”
James, of Epsom, Surrey, also got letters from doctors in Ukraine saying his incubator was the only solution.
He said: “We heard from contacts in Ukraine that physicians were having to make the difficult choice of taking premature babies down into bomb shelters without the equipment they needed, or staying in maternity units where they risked being maimed or killed.”
In June last year, he teamed up with development organisation Crown Agents to deliver the first incubators to Ukraine. James’s prototype also caught the attention of the charitable foundation of the entrepreneur James Dyson.
In 2014 the James Dyson Foundation gave him a global award for innovation.
The incubator’s foldable design and light weight –just 20kg – also make it useful for neonatal care in the UK.
