Neonatal intensive care is built on two foundations: what the clinical team does and the environment in which the baby is cared for. A preterm baby born at twenty-eight weeks cannot regulate its own temperature, maintain its own blood glucose, or protect itself from the sensory demands of an uncontrolled environment. The equipment surrounding that baby in the days and weeks after birth is not simply a support system. It is, in a very real sense, the extension of the womb that the baby left too soon.
At KIMS Cuddles at KIMS Hospitals, Electronic City, Giraffe incubators in the NICU at Electronic City Bengaluru are at the centre of the thermal and environmental management of every critically ill and premature newborn admitted to our unit. The Giraffe OmniBed is one of the most advanced combined incubator and warmer systems available, and it underpins our ability to provide a genuinely optimal physical environment for the most vulnerable newborns in our care.
What the Giraffe OmniBed Provides
The neonatal incubator in Electronic City does considerably more than keep a baby warm. The Giraffe OmniBed is a servo-controlled double-walled incubator that maintains a precise, stable thermal environment by continuously measuring the baby's skin temperature and adjusting the incubator air temperature accordingly. This servo-controlled mode ensures that the baby's body temperature is maintained at the exact target set by the clinical team, not at an approximation that depends on periodic adjustment.
The double-walled design reduces radiant heat loss from the baby to the incubator walls, which is a significant source of heat loss in single-walled incubators particularly when the ambient room temperature is lower than the incubator interior. This design feature meaningfully improves thermal stability for very preterm babies whose thin skin and minimal subcutaneous fat make them exquisitely sensitive to even small temperature fluctuations.
Converting Between Incubator and Radiant Warmer
One of the most practically significant features of the Giraffe incubator system is its ability to convert between a closed incubator and an open radiant warmer without moving the baby. The roof of the Giraffe OmniBed lifts away and a radiant heater activates, giving the clinical team full, unimpeded access to the baby for procedures, examinations, and resuscitation, while maintaining overhead radiant warming throughout.
This convertibility eliminates the need to transfer a critically ill premature baby between an incubator and a separate resuscitation warmer during unstable periods, removing a source of stress, temperature instability, and clinical risk that occurs when separate pieces of equipment are used.
Humidity Control
Very preterm babies lose large amounts of water through their immature skin, a process called transepidermal water loss that is significantly greater in extremely preterm babies than in term newborns. This water loss contributes to hypernatraemia, hypothermia, and skin breakdown. The Giraffe OmniBed provides precise humidity control within the incubator environment, supplementing atmospheric humidity to the levels needed to minimise transepidermal water loss in the most premature babies.
In the first weeks of life for an extremely preterm baby, humidity levels within the incubator of eighty to ninety percent dramatically reduce the fluid and electrolyte disturbances that would otherwise result from excessive skin water loss, significantly simplifying the clinical management of these babies.
Integrated Monitoring and Access
The NICU equipment provided by our Giraffe incubators is designed with clinical access in mind. Multiple portholes allow nursing staff to care for the baby while maintaining the closed incubator environment, and the low profile of the incubator bed allows comfortable access for procedures. The integrated scale within the incubator allows continuous weight monitoring without removing the baby, providing real-time information about fluid balance that is clinically critical in very small premature babies.
Neonatal Warmers for Delivery Room and Procedural Care
Neonatal Warmers are located next to our incubators in our delivery rooms and process areas to provide a stable heated environment for assessment, resuscitation and clinical procedures of the baby. Our warmers use overhead radiant heaters which are adjusted to keep the skin temperature at the target range, so that hypothermia is actively prevented rather than just watched during procedures that require full access to the baby, and our warmers are also equipped with a temperature probe to measure the temperature of the baby’s skin.
Why Temperature Management Matters
Hypothermia in the newborn period, defined as a core temperature below thirty-six degrees Celsius, is independently associated with increased mortality, intraventricular haemorrhage, respiratory distress, hypoglycaemia, and infection in preterm babies. Every degree of temperature drop below the target range carries measurable clinical consequences. The investment in equipment that maintains precise, stable thermoregulation throughout the NICU admission is not a luxury. It is a clinical imperative.
Why Choose KIMS Cuddles at KIMS Hospitals, Electronic City
The quality of the physical environment in which premature and critically ill newborns are cared for directly affects their clinical outcomes. At KIMS Cuddles at KIMS Hospitals, Electronic City, our investment in Giraffe incubators and specialist neonatal warmers reflects our commitment to providing every baby in our NICU with the physical environment that the evidence shows they need, not the best available given constraints, but genuinely optimal care.
Book a Consultation
To discuss the neonatal intensive care facilities at KIMS Cuddles at KIMS Hospitals, Electronic City, or to enquire about admission for a premature or critically ill newborn, contact our team online or by phone.
