Comparison of a novel incubator with standard incubator care: A randomised multi-centre, cross-over study

Objective: To test the performance, efficacy and usability of the mOm Essential Incubator, a novel, spacesaving infant incubator designed for use in high and low-resource settings.
Design and Setting: Prospective, randomised, multi-centre, cross-over design pilot study. Neonatal Units at three UK centres participated.
Patients: Stable premature infants of =30 weeks corrected gestational age who required incubator care were eligible to participate.
Intervention: Babies were randomised to 24-hour care episodes in either standard or mOm incubators with cross-over after 24 hours.
Primary Outcome: Efficacy of temperature maintenance within the normothermic range 36.5°C to 37.5°C.
Staff feedback on the usability of the mOm incubator was collected as a secondary outcome.
Results: There was no significant difference between the performance of the mOm and standard incubators in maintaining normothermia and no adverse incidents were observed. User feedback was positive, with staff reporting the mOm incubator to be easy to use and quicker to clean between patient uses.
Conclusion: For the care of infants =6kg who do not require humidification, the mOm Essential Incubator can be considered as an alternative to standard incubators.