Neobed

    Premature babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Jacobs Medical Center face several issues ranging from low birth weight to respiratory problems.

 

     Currently, the NICU has 52 patient rooms equipped with Giraffe incubators. However, the current design of the patient rooms does not adequately provide a natural and comfortable environment for these babies to grow.

 

Extended mobility

     Neobed offers premature babies a more comfortable environment. It helps them with their digestion and can also help them learn how to use their arm muscles. For infants with reflux, Neobed ensures they can be elevated at a suitable level and that their heads are at a slight incline. 

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Current issues

• babies lay flat on their beds for most of the day

• have difficulty stretching or moving arms inward after leaving NICU

• laying down flat for long durations of time can lead to plagiocephaly ([14])

• current solution for elevation is not reliable

  • use pillows to move babies up, but they slide off easily​

   

Sensory stimulation

      Neobed provides babies with the auditory stimulation they need for their brains to develop and gain familiarity with sounds they would be exposed to outside of the NICU. Babies hear natural sounds such as chirping birds and get exposed to basic speech through lullabies and rhymes. It has been showed that music therapy can help with lowering stress levels and help promote normal heart rates [2].  

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Current issues

• infants are kept in separate rooms

• mainly surrounded by hospital staff and medical devices

• do not develop bonds with others

• lack exposure to sounds babies at home would experience

• most parents do not stay for a very long duration in their babies’ rooms

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Effective temperature control

    Neobed has a highly advanced approach to regulating babies' temperature inside their incubators. It provides a consistent source of heat and triggers alerts to nurses or others when the temperature increases beyond a set threshold. 

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Current issues

• central heating system is used to increase temperatures of patient rooms

• lack of sustained and localized heat for the babies

• low weight babies lose body heat fairly quickly

• current air control system tends to blow too much hot air on the babies 

• babies sweat too much 

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