NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, November 6, 2015

Indian student has developed a low-cost cardboard baby incubator that that could help save millions of lives in countries like India which lack grassroots-level infrastructure for neonatal care of premature and underweight infants.

Malav Sanghavi, studying for his Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) Master’s dual degree course at Imperial College London and Royal College of Art, won third prize for his BabyLifeBox in a start-up competition held at St James’ Palace in London.

“BabyLifeBox is a low-cost baby incubator that provides basic neonatal care at grassroots-level. India has highest number of babies dying within the first 24 hours of their birth in the world, more than 300,000 a year,” Sanghavi said.

“According to our initial research, we found that India’s healthcare service has facilities to deal with a standard birth at sub-centres, primary health centres and community health centres but it lacks infrastructure for neonatal care of premature and underweight infants,” explained Sanghavi, a graduate from the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad.

The idea for the innovation was born when his cousin’s daughter had to be kept alive in an incubator a few years ago.

“This was crucial for her survival and we were lucky to have these facilities as we were from developed city of India,” Sanghavi said.