mOm Incubator Pilot Study
Condition: Hypothermia
MeSH terms: Hypothermia
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The mOm Incubator is a collapsible infant incubator designed to provide a level of
      thermoregulation that meets the standards set for conventional incubators whilst being low
      cost and space-saving. Babies recruited will be clinically stable, at least 30 weeks
      gestational age and require at least 48 hours incubator care. A standard or test incubator
      will be used for the first 24 hours chosen randomly, then the baby will be moved to the over
      arm for a further 24 hours.
    

Detailed description: 
      Investigators will recruit babies who are in the Neonatal Unit at St. Peter's Hospital.
      Babies will be clinically stable from a cardio-respiratory point of view. They will also be
      requiring incubator care (so they will weigh less than approximately 1400g) but not requiring
      additional humidification. This effectively excludes babies born less than 30 weeks gestation
      who are routinely humidified for the first week (if 28-30 weeks gestation) or two weeks (if
      less than 28 weeks gestation). Some term babies may also be eligible for the study if they
      are being nursed in an incubator for clinical reasons.

      Identification and recruitment of babies will be carried out by the attending Consultant
      Neonatologist and the research team.

      For twins, consecutive enrolment will be possible if only one mOm incubator is available.

      There will be two arms to the protocol. The first arm will consist of standard incubator
      care, where the care of the baby is unchanged, but non-invasive, more frequent (hourly)
      temperature and other physiological measures of stability than would normally be collected in
      routine care (nominally every three hours) will be collected. The second arm will be the baby
      receiving normal care in the mOm incubator, with another set of hourly detailed,
      non-invasive, observations. The planned care and monitoring of the baby will be otherwise
      unchanged. No additional blood tests or any other invasive testing or monitoring are
      required. The clinical team will have full control and responsibility for the baby's care and
      can terminate the study for the baby at any time for any reason.

      In addition, investigators will collect the views of staff on the baby's comfort, visibility,
      care, usability and acceptability during each arm of the study.

      For each arm of the study, the secondary outcome measures are:

      (1) pulse rate (as a measure of clinical stability) (2) respiratory rate (as a measure of
      clinical stability) (3) apnea and bradycardia episodes recorded by nursing staff (clinical
      stability) (4) temperature (as a measure of clinical stability) (4) adverse events related to
      incubator performance (5) cleaning ease and time took (6) set up time (7) staff structured
      feedback

      36 eligible babies will be recruited into the study at a single site, being identified by the
      clinical team. All 36 will experience a 24 hour period in each of the two incubators (mOm and
      standard) (48 hours in total), in a randomly allocated order. Babies will act as their own
      controls in this cross-over study design. If any babies fail to complete the 48-hour study
      procedures (e.g. due to data incomplete or baby withdrawn) further babies will be recruited
      to achieve 36 complete datasets.
    

Intervention name(s): mOm incubator; standard incubator
Intervention type(s): Device; Device
Intervention description(s): 24 hour usage of test incubator; standard incubator
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Crossover Assignment
Intervention model description: a randomized two-arm crossover study
Masking: Triple (Participant, Care Provider, Investigator)
Primary purpose: Supportive Care
Keywords: neonatal, incubator, thermal-regulation