The Portable Neonatal Warmer is an innovation developed at the Uganda Industrial Research Institute with the aim of managing temperature for premature babies and newborns.
Temperature dropping or hypothermia in newborn babies normally leads to low metabolism causing body stress and increases the chances of newborns dying especially if they are premature.
The Baby Warmer
In 2019 it was recorded that out of 1000 births 20 Ugandan babies died at birth. The Ministry of Health Reproductive, Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health plan for Uganda 2016- 2020 indicates that 416,000 women in the country still give birth by informally trained birth attendants.
The Portable Neonatal Warmer comes as an intervention to alleviating neonatal deaths in Uganda, also targeting the rural setting where electricity is not readily accessible and the PNW does not require it to sustain the baby’s warmth.