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This invention looks like a tiny sleeping bag and it's helped save 150,000 babies.

All babies should have a happy beginning.

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Gates Foundation

When Manjula gave birth to her third baby, she still didn't feel like a mom.

And I don't blame her. She'd only known tragedy up until then.


Holding her baby girl. Images via Embrace Innovations.

Manjula had given birth twice in the past two years in her village in South India, but both babies passed away right after they were born. So as you can imagine, she was too worried about her new baby girl to even think about celebrating.

At birth, her baby girl weighed just 1.9 lbs.

Yes, 1.9. That's dangerously underweight.

When a baby is severely low weight, even room temperature can be too cold. That's why most premature babies are placed in an incubator, but in many developing countries, those aren't an option. They're pricey, they need constant electricity and they require specialized training.

Would Manjula lose her third child, too?

Thankfully, the answer was no. Because the doctors at her local clinic put the baby in one of these:


I know what you're thinking: Hey, that thing kind of looks like a little sleeping bag baby burrito or something. Yeah, it does. The BEST sleeping bag baby burrito!

It's called an Embrace infant warmer and it helped to save Manjula's daughter.

Head bobs for happy beginnings! GIF via Brovadere.

To date, the Embrace infant warmer has helped save 150,000 babies, just like Manjula's daughter, in 10 different countries!

The infant warmer allows those babies to regulate their own body temperatures in the most crucial moments of early life.

And here's the world-changing part: This simple infant warmer can provide the same results as an incubator but for 1% of the cost. And it could help more than 20 million premature and underweight babies each year. Did I mention that this device is amazing?


Incubators can cost up to $20,000. The Embrace infant warmer is 1% of that. The result is the same.

Who in the heck thought of this magnificent baby-saver?

A Stanford MBA class. I spoke with co-founder (and former student in said MBA class) Jane Chen and couldn't stop being like, "Wow, so smart."

"We've been at it for eight years and have now helped approximately 150,000 babies across 10 countries," Chen said. "The goal is to help 1 million babies, but like with a lot of projects, funding is an issue. That's one of the reasons behind us launching Little Lotus."

Little Lotus is a collection of baby products for the U.S. market that use technology similar to the Embrace infant warmer to keep babies at the perfect temperature. And thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, its future is looking very bright.

Image via Little Lotus.

"Many people have come up to me and said, 'If I saw a baby in need I would do anything to help that child, especially after I became a mother,'" Chen said.

So, now you can help that child (and yours too). If you buy a baby product from Little Lotus, an Embrace infant warmer will be sent to a vulnerable baby in the developing world.

It's kind of like the Toms Shoes or Warby Parker of keeping kids alive — so worth it.

Find out more about these infant warmers and how you can use them to help out the babies in your life, as well as those far away. It's a double win!



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