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Incubators help the littlest human babies stay warm and safe. Now, a hospital in Western Australia has teamed up to reuse decommissioned incubators to save the tiniest of orphaned baby kangaroos known as pinkies.
In the wild, kangaroo joeys (babies) spend eight months inside their mother’s pouches before they are able to fend for themselves. But the tiny pinkies struggle to survive without the warmth and nutrition of their mother’s pouches.
Mandy Watson , co-owner of Kununurra's Kangaroo Rescue Haven, has been rescuing these pinkies when the mother’s die on the roads or after being shot, reported ABC News. Sadly only one in 25 pinkies who arrive at the shelter with their eyes closed survive.
Now thanks to Jane Darlington, a pediatric nurse from the Kununurra District Hospital, these pinkies have a chance to survive and even thrive in an incubator that mimics the pouch of a mother kangaroo or wallaby.
A great idea!
Darlington was trying to figure out a way to reuse two older baby incubators that could no longer be used. Medical technology keeps improving and while these incubators worked they were obsolete. In fact, the incubators were scheduled to be disposed of when a solution actually hopped past her.
When she was shopping in Kununurra, Darlington came across a Kangaroo Rescue Haven worker dressed as a wallaby carrying a joey who was hopping along. “It was very cute and caught my attention,” she said.
And then a lightbulb went off. The incubators could be used for baby joeys instead of baby humans. Now she had to find a partner who shared her vision.
Humidicrib pseudo pouches
Darlington contacted Watson to explain her idea and the two agreed that the incubators could be used as pseudo-pouches, according to Euro Weekly News. The incubators, now known as humidicribs, offer the warmth and humidity the joeys need to survive. And because of the size, more than one orphan can be looked after in them at a time so more babies can potentially be saved.
“The humidicrib is going to be a constant temperature that's going to dramatically help [to] save a few more lives,” Watson told ABC.
The joeys at the rescue center are released back into the wild when they are old enough to care for themselves. Watson said that in 20 years, 823 kangaroo orphans have been released but it is very bittersweet. “I cry every time — they're sad tears, but happy tears,” Watson said.
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