Meet Dr. Lameck: Keeping Newborns Warm in Rural Tanzania
Tanzania’s Kwimba District sees more than 18,000 births a year, and over 1,200 of those babies are born with low birth weight. Many cannot regulate their own body temperature and need thermal care to survive. From rural facilities like Hungumalwa Health Centre, the nearest referral facilities in Mwanza are nearly two hours away on rough roads, leaving premature and small newborns exposed to hypothermia with limited options for specialized care.
Dr. Lameck Taliwe Enanka leads care at Hungumalwa, which sees around 2,400 births a year. Embrace Global partnered with the Doris Mollel Foundation to bring Embrace Nest infant warmers to his facility. Before the infant warmers arrived, Dr. Lameck’s team relied on Kangaroo Mother Care supplemented with hot water bottles to keep small newborns warm. Today, the Embrace Nest gives them a safer, more reliable option, and fewer babies remain hypothermic. Embrace Global trained the team to use the warmers alongside Kangaroo Mother Care, so every health worker on shift can use them with confidence.
Our partnership with the Doris Mollel Foundation is paving a new road for newborn survival in Kwimba, bringing life-saving warmth to rural facilities where specialized care is a long journey away. Together, we are equipping health workers like Dr. Lameck to give the smallest babies a strong start close to home. Where a baby is born should never determine whether they survive.
Step inside Hungumalwa Health Centre and meet Dr. Lameck and the team keeping Kwimba's smallest newborns warm. Watch the video here.
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