Photo: mOm baby incubator, invented by James Roberts, global winner of the 2014 James Dyson award for innovation (Credit: Dyson)
Press release 13th June 2016
Hampshire company’s product will help stop premature baby deaths
A British manufacturer and twice Queen’s Award winner, Morgan Innovation & Technology has won the contract to design, develop and manufacture a new low cost, portable baby incubator.
The mOm baby incubator was invented by James Roberts, global winner of the 2014 James Dyson award for innovation.¹ Morgan IAT will manage the project from initial design phase up to bringing it to market, as well as developing the electronics and software. Project partner, Concentrated Heat & Momentum Ltd will assist with thermo-dynamic design.
The World health organisation estimate that 1 in 10 babies are born prematurely worldwide and the number is rising. A stable heat environment is essential to give babies the greatest chance of survival and within refugee camps, and it’s known that three quarters of all premature child deaths are due to lack of incubation.
The partnership between mOm and Morgan builds upon the Design and development already carried out by mOm. The revolutionary new baby incubator will have to be extremely robust for use in harsh remote regions at home and abroad, as well as for disaster relief.²
Old designs of incubators were both expensive and cumbersome. A better, lower cost product is needed to keep the tiniest and most vulnerable babies safely incubated. It also has to be compact enough to store, collapsible for low-cost shipping and easily portable.
Nigel Clarke, CEO of Morgan IAT said: “The nature of this development raises some new and interesting challenges when compared with a traditional incubator design, which is what we enjoy about this type of project.”
James Roberts, who invented mOm, said: “Premature birth is now becoming an epidemic across the world due to a number of factors. A product like the mOm incubator could give some of those children a chance who before had none.”
Simple and quick to set-up, mOm will weigh less than 10% of a conventional incubator. It will have removable ends to facilitate cleaning or replacement of the central compartment; and sterile, disposable compartments for quicker set-up and lower contamination costs.