Bengaluru :
Divya Sharavana delivered her second baby, Ritiksha, 20 days early. After 10 days in the neonatal wing of St Philomena’s Hospital, the child was discharged with a bracelet around her wrist.
“One night, the orange light on the bracelet started flashing with an alarm and we rushed the baby to the doctor. She was suffering from hypothermia —a condition when body loses heat faster than it produces — and gastrointestinal infection. She could be saved because of the device,” says Divya, who lost her first baby to complications.
Ritiksha is two years old now, and healthy. She owes it to Bempu, the bracelet that saved her by beeping when her temperature plummeted. The brain behind the innovation is Ratul Narain, 33, a Stanford University alumnus with a master’s degree in biomechanics. The device is manufactured by Bempu Health in Bengaluru.
10,000 Bempus have been used across the world
In India, one in three newborns suffers from low birth weight or is under 2.5kg. This is one in 12 in developed countries,” Ratul Narain says.
A made-in-India hypothermia alert device for newborns, Bempu has been recognized as one of the 25 best innovations in the world in 2017 by the Time magazine. Invented and manufactured by Bempu Health in the bylanes of Langford Road in Bengaluru, Bempu weighs 8gm. Worn by a newborn with low birth weight, it flashes blue light if the temperature is normal. If the temperature goes below 36.5-degree Celsius or 97.7
Fahrenheit, it flashes orange and rings an alarm alerting it’s time for immediate attention, either warming the child up or giving Kangaroo mother care.
Some 10,000 Bempus have been used across the world and 1,000 of them donated to government hospitals ever since it entered the market in early 2016.
Before developing the device, Ratul spent a year at hospitals in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat to understand neonatal complications. “Among babies with low birth weight, infections can occur at home. Up to 15% of low-weight newborns discharged from government NICU would die at home due to complications like infections and hypothermia. The significant cost of facility care for the baby was, therefore, lost at home. That’s what made me work on a lowcost solution,” says Ratul.
The device priced Rs 2,500 can be used for four weeks without replacing its battery. To avoid cross-infections, it is suggested not to pass it on to a second user. Ratul’s research was facilitated by grants from various countries and institutions, including USAID, UKAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bempu is now being used in Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Togo and Ghana through Unicef initiatives.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore News / by Sunitha Rao R / November 27th, 2017