articles

Helping Infants Around the World

By Alison Wenger July 5, 2016
In 2008, Jane Chen and a group of her Stanford classmates were challenged to design a baby incubator that cost less than 1% of a traditional design. Their class project turned into the Embrace Infant Warmer, which to date, has helped over 200,000 preterm infants in developing countries.

That invention led to the creation of Embrace Innovations, a company devoted to bringing health tech to the world’s most vulnerable populations. Their latest innovation is Little Lotus Baby, a line of adorable commercial baby products inspired by the design of the Embrace Infant Warmer. Each Little Lotus Baby product uses proprietary technology to keep infants at an ideal body temperature, resulting in better sleep. But the best part is the company’s TOMS Shoes-like 1:1 model: for each Little Lotus Baby product you buy, an infant in need is helped by the Embrace Infant Warmer.



Read on to learn more about Chen and the amazing work of Embrace Innovations.

Tell us about your family and where you are from.

I have two sisters, and we were all born in Taiwan but grew up in Los Angeles. I don't yet have children of my own, but would like to someday!

Can you believe what began as a class project has now grown into this amazing opportunity?

No! It’s still hard to believe. But as I learned more about the issue over the years, and had the opportunity to meet impacted mothers face-to-face, the more I was driven to turn this into something big.

When we were beginning our research in Nepal and India, we saw that some hospitals – even in small towns – actually did have traditional equipment like incubators and radiant warmers, often donated by well-meaning foreigners. However, given the lack of constant electricity to power them, not to mention the lack of training for the healthcare workers to operate them, they’d often be lying idle. Furthermore, the vast majority of premature babies were dying miles away from these hospitals, in villages.

That’s why I am so moved to help these women, because their babies don’t have to die. Their deaths were often preventable, if only they had had help. Now, we get them that help.

What is the most rewarding story that you've heard as a result of the Embrace warmer?

There is a child named Nathan who is extremely special to me, and his story is probably surprising to most. Born just under two pounds and abandoned on the side of the road in Beijing after his birth, he’s come to be one of my biggest sources of inspiration.

After Nathan was discovered by a nearby orphanage (Little Flower Orphanage) with whom we had just launched a program, Nathan was swaddled in an Embrace Warmer for thirty days. Thanks to the Warmer and Little Flower’s loving care, this tiny, hypothermic infant survived! At that birth weight, he really shouldn’t have survived at all, so his plight and survival was incredibly moving to me. When I went to visit him at the orphanage at seven months old, I found a healthy, happy baby boy.

Today, Nathan lives in Chicago with his adopted family, and is a smiling, interactive, and very lively toddler. His family has even sent me photos of Nathan posing next to his Embrace Warmer, which he is way too big for now!

What are some of the places this journey has taken you?

All over India, China, Rwanda, Serbia, Mexico, Geneva, London, France, the White House, to name a few places.

How can individual families support your vision?

We’d love for Little Lotus Baby to become the TOMS Shoes of baby products. The best way someone can help is by purchasing a Little Lotus Baby product for a friend, family member, or for their own baby! Our goal is help save the lives of one million preterm infants, and we’re rallying our incredible customers to help accomplish that.

If you had to choose the most important thing about your mission that you'd want Macaroni families to know, what would it be?

It’s a startling fact, but more than 1 million babies across the world die on their birthing day. 98% of these deaths occur in the developing world, and the leading cause of these deaths is preventable complications, related to prematurity and low birth weight.

So, I want Macaroni families to understand that their support and purchases make a real, material, life-giving difference in another mother’s life. When they buy a Little Lotus Product, it’s like they are wrapping up a brand new baby across the globe, giving it a shot at life. A shot it otherwise might not have had.

What is your vision for five or 10 years in the future?

I hope we can drastically reduce infant mortality with the Embrace Infant Warmer, create more low-cost products to prevent deaths in developing countries, and unite the global community of parents in a universal mission: to give every child a chance for life.