Premature babies are vulnerable, so you have to keep them warm and monitor their vital signs. Today, the babies have to be in an incubator, covered with all kinds of wires and patches. The patches give a lot of skin damage when they're removed, and also a lot of pain and stress for the baby. So that's why startup Bambi Medical designed the skin friendly Bambi Belt Solution.
Check the video of Bambi Medical:
CEO Fabio Bambang Oetomo: 'With the Bambi Belt, the skin will be kept much more intact. And therefore less infections in the hospitals and less pain and stress for the baby. And connected to it, is a sensor module, which sends the vital signs wirelessly to the patient monitor. Because it’s a wireless solution, you can see it’s more easy for parents to put the baby on their chest and provide kangaroo mother care.'
Huge saving for hospitals Every year 2 million premature babies end up in the hospital. The Belt can be a solution for both babies and hospitals. 'If we bring the Bambi Belt to all those 2 million babies in the hospitals. Actually, they will be able to go come, two to three days earlier. And the related saving of two days less in the hospital would be on a global scale 8 billion euros per year. So it’s a huge saving to the health care cost in the world.'
Becoming a father Fabio’s father, a pediatrician at Maxima Medical Center in Veldhoven, came up with the idea. Inspired as he was, Fabio quit his well-paid job at food company Mars to help his father. That Fabio became a father himself, also helped him to make this decision. 'I think becoming a father changes your perspective. And it really change your priorities in life. So being able to help other babies by a great innovation is definitely one of the big drivers. I wouldn’t have said farewell to Mars for just starting a company making a new vacuum cleaner, hope not to insult anyone now!'
Clinical trials More than 20 hospitals in the world are willing to work with the Bambi Belt Solution. Recently the startup received an investment of 4 million euros, so now its time for the next step: clinical trials. 'Dutch hospitals, a German hospital and also a Swedish hospital. The end of this year we’ll be starting the clinical trials, were we can really test our product on the premature babies.'
Large impact If all goes well, the Bambi Belt will be on the market next year. And this will mean a huge change for premature babies. Fabio: 'If you can really positively influence a bad start of life, a child will benefit from it, a person will benefit from it for 60, 70, 80, 90 years. So working with this patient group specifically gives us a great feeling, because you can make a large impact and a long lasting impact on people’s life.'
