More about incubators …

I recently wrote about the amazing doctor who started using incubators in the late 1800’s to save premature babies … long before they were the norm in hospitals. Now I see that it takes another person “thinking out of the box” to take it a step further.

James Roberts, 23, a recent college graduate in England was declared the International Winner of the James Dyson Award for inventing an inflatable baby incubator. He got the idea after watching a documentary about Syria and saw that many infants were dying there because of the lack of medical resources.

Roberts initial incentive was to “design a product that solves a problem” and he certainly fulfilled that requirement. He actually became obsessed with making his idea work and he even sold his car to fund his research and his incubator prototype. After nine months of non-stop effort and thought he produced his working machine that he named the MOM incubator. 

Roberts incubator has humidity and temperature controls and can be blown up manually. The article that I read reported that “MOM is an inflatable incubator for the developing world. It has the same performance as a £30,000 modern incubation system, but costs just £250 to manufacture, test and transport. It can be collapsed for transportation and its battery lasts 24 hours.”

His invention has the potential to save thousands of lives and I’m sure he will fulfill his wildest dream, which, in his words is “meeting someone in 10 years who was a kid and was in my incubator and survived.”

Wow ! It’s the James Roberts of the world that give us hope.