Wearable ‘Skincubator’ could transform skin-to-skin care for premature babies

A new wearable device being studied in neonatal intensive care units could make it possible for some of the smallest and most medically fragile premature babies to spend significantly more time in skin-to-skin contact with their parents.

Called the Skincubator, the device is designed to bring some of the protective conditions of a neonatal incubator directly onto a parent’s chest, allowing premature infants to receive prolonged skin-to-skin care while remaining warm, humidified and supported.

Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston recently became the first hospital in the United States to introduce the technology as part of a clinical trial.

For extremely premature infants, skin-to-skin contact — often called kangaroo care — can be difficult to provide for extended periods. Babies may require respiratory support, intravenous lines, monitoring equipment and carefully controlled temperature and humidity.

Moving a medically fragile infant from an incubator to a parent can therefore require significant assistance from the neonatal care team and carries concerns about temperature loss and displacement of tubes and lines.

The Skincubator was developed to address those barriers.

The wearable, non-electrical system secures the infant to the caregiver’s chest while helping maintain warmth and humidity. It also provides a system for organizing and securing respiratory tubing, catheters, probes and other medical lines during transfer and while the baby is being held.

The technology is designed to allow infants receiving respiratory support to remain on a parent’s chest for hours rather than shorter periods of conventional skin-to-skin care.

Early research is encouraging.

A 2026 study published in the American Journal of Perinatology evaluated the Skincubator 2.0 and found that it allowed infants to be transferred to and from skin-to-skin care within a warm and humidified environment. Parents participating in the study reported greater satisfaction with the device’s safety and convenience compared with traditional skin-to-skin care.

Researchers said the technology could help parents provide longer periods of skin-to-skin care for premature infants.

The potential benefits are significant. Skin-to-skin care has been associated with improved temperature regulation, more stable heart and breathing patterns, better sleep and growth, pain reduction and stronger parent-infant bonding.

For parents, the technology could also change the experience of having a child in intensive care.

Instead of watching their newborn primarily through the walls of an incubator, parents may be able to participate more directly in their baby’s care during the earliest and most vulnerable days of life.

The Skincubator has received Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a designation intended to accelerate the development and regulatory review of certain technologies addressing serious or life-threatening conditions.

Importantly, Breakthrough Device Designation does not mean the device has received FDA marketing authorization. The technology remains under clinical investigation as researchers continue to evaluate its safety, performance and potential benefits.

The Skincubator has now been used with dozens of premature infants at clinical sites on several continents, according to its developer.

If larger clinical studies confirm its early results, the technology could represent an important shift in neonatal intensive care — allowing advanced medical support and prolonged parent-infant contact to occur at the same time rather than requiring clinicians and families to choose between them.

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