A new incubator let them hold their twins at last

A couple at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston recently became the first in the U.S. to use a wearable incubator that lets parents hold their preterm babies without interrupting the machines keeping them alive. Tiffany Ikwuagwu and Dorian Ojemen had their twins at just 26 weeks in August. For about 10 days, they could not hold them at all. The Skincubator, built for infants under 4.4 pounds and granted FDA Breakthrough Device designation last December, keeps feeding and airway tubes secured while a retractable pad lowers the baby onto a parent's chest. Ikwuagwu, an obstetrician herself, called it a great invention. Ojemen told CNN that holding them changed something. "You can feel them breathe, like, that immediately makes you feel like, wow, I'm a parent." Skin-to-skin contact stabilizes a newborn's heart rate and breathing. It also, as one researcher put it, turns on the part of the nervous system that handles feeling calm.