Iswahyudi
"Of course, materially, I don't gain anything. But when the baby becomes healthy, and the mother comes here with her baby, and she brings her husband, brings the baby's grandfather, also the baby's grandmother, and along with the entire extended family, they express their gratitude, what happens to me? When they leave, I step out the door, feeling like I'm floating in the air. An indescribable feeling of happiness. It's extraordinarily fulfilling. Once or twice, then it happens again and again. Every day, I am happy," expressed Professor Raldi Artono Koestoer, a professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia, who dedicates his life to helping premature babies throughout Indonesia, especially for underprivileged families, by creating and lending his energy-saving portable incubators free of charge.
The story of the portable incubator innovation began in 1998 when he visited his sister's house, who is a pediatric specialist. His sister brought home a small incubator, but upon arrival, it turned out the incubator was broken. Seeing the broken device, Raldi inspected the incubator. He criticized while analyzing the device. Seeing Raldi continuously critiquing the incubator, his sister commented why he didn't just make an incubator himself. His sister's comment immediately struck a chord in his memory. Although his sister didn't remember her comment later on. But for Professor Raldi, that comment became a sort of whip for him to create an incubator according to his expertise in heat transfer. And he didn't find it a difficult task.
Once, a friend visited his house and asked him if he indeed made a baby incubator and planned to buy it for his premature grandchild. But Professor Raldi refused and suggested to his friend to just borrow it. After three weeks, his old friend's wife called him and said that their premature grandchild didn't tolerate being in the incubator anymore and was already healthy, intending to return the incubator he created. Professor Raldi didn't wait; he went to his old friend's house himself to retrieve the incubator. At that moment, he felt he had found his calling, which was to help premature babies.
After that incident, Professor Raldi, who is also a diligent blogger writing about his experiences helping premature babies through his innovative incubator, tried to offer his good intentions to help more premature babies by providing an email address and SMS contact to be reached. As luck would have it, many people with premature babies' issues contacted Professor Raldi to borrow his incubator, especially for underprivileged families. Because hospital-style incubator care would not be accessible to the middle to lower class. Nevertheless, Professor Raldi opened his hands to all levels to borrow his invention's incubator, even for wealthy people.
Starting by serving incubator rentals around Depok and Jakarta, Professor Raldi eventually had a big dream to reach every city in the country by recruiting many agents in various cities who share the same vision of spreading more goodness to save premature babies, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) data in 2018, stated on its official website that there are 15 million premature births worldwide every year. Indonesia itself ranks fifth as a country with high premature births, around 675,700 births.
After being invited to a Kick Andy Show event in August 2021, Professor Raldi said, "We started in 2012 until December 2020, a total of 4,500 saved babies in 120 cities. 80% are in Java and Bali, the rest 20% are elsewhere." He explained among the saved babies, not only those with a weight of about 1.5 kg, but also those with a weight of only 700 grams. Furthermore, Professor Raldi revealed that he collaborated with the "agents" to distribute free incubators. Agents are people who want to cover production costs, want to deliver incubators to those in need, take, and take care of the incubator. Starting with only 10 agents in 10 cities in 2014, his movement now has partnered with 120 agents in 120 cities. He promised to continue to manage free incubators to save more babies' lives. Until now, Raldi continues to develop his incubator technology. He developed a detachable incubator to save space, making it easier and cheaper to send to various areas. Furthermore, Professor Raldi said parents in need of incubator assistance can contact the SMS center or via WhatsApp contact numbers.
Professor Raldi once said why he cares about premature babies, according to him, premature babies are the weakest beings of a human, so they must receive much attention and care.
"Then why do we help babies? Let me tell you, if there are women and men, maybe men are stronger. If there are adults and children, maybe adults are stronger. If there are children and toddlers, maybe children are stronger. Toddlers and babies, maybe toddlers are stronger. Babies and premature babies, babies are stronger. So these premature babies are the weakest humans. They can't help themselves. They can't even cry. The average weight of those we help is under one and a half kilograms. They don't even have the energy to cry. So they just stay silent, trembling with cold. So we help them by providing a warm environment. Then their immunity grows. Then they're at home with their mother, cared for 24 hours. And if the mother is separated from her baby, the mother becomes stressed. The baby also becomes stressed. Why? Because the baby already knows its mother. (If they're) separated, they'll definitely be stressed. If they're together, both stresses disappear. Then after both stresses disappear, a psycho-biological effect occurs. What is it? Because the mother's stress is gone, breast milk flows smoothly. Because the breast milk flows smoothly, the baby receives the best intake from its mother, so the baby is healthy, so it can quickly catch up. That's the secret..."
Touching Story When Helping Premature Babies
Once there was an agent of Professor Raldi around Jonggol Jakarta named Mrs. Eni who heard there was a premature baby near her location. Promptly, she investigated the baby's whereabouts and brought the incubator with her to help the baby. After some investigation, it turned out the baby had been abandoned by its parents and found by a woman who worked taking care of goats. Fortunately, the unfortunate baby met "little angels," someone who cared and saved it and someone who came bringing an incubator and keeping it warm even though its presence was not expected by its biological mother. The warmth and caring from people whose compassionate souls continue to be awake and burning. Even though the 'little angel' had to be accompanied by the 'music' of goat bleats beside her house for a while.
Once, the SMS center for the free portable incubator rental service of Professor Raldi rang. Someone around Klaten, Central Java, needed an incubator. Promptly, Professor Raldi searched for the nearest agent to help a premature baby in need. Unfortunately, there were no nearby agents who could reach. With regret, Professor Raldi couldn't help. But an idea emerged, which was to guide the baby's parents to make an emergency incubator based on the heat transfer theory he mastered. He guided the baby's parents to provide a plastic filling cabinet and a 40 Watt spotlight aimed at the baby's feet and provided a cloth mat in the filling cabinet by perforating it in several parts and splitting half of its cover. With that simple knowledge, the baby survived. During the free incubator rental service, 17 sets of triplets have been saved thanks to his portable incubator invention.
“One day, a mother came with her baby. There was the baby's father, the baby's grandfather, the baby's grandmother, the baby's uncle, and the baby's older brother. A total of nine people entered my room. Even the chairs weren't enough. They thanked me for my help. Then they went home and left through the door. After they were gone, they went down the elevator. I went out the door, what happened to me? I felt like I was floating in the air. I saw small cars. What does this mean? It means I become the happiest person in the world. All the problems in this world become small to me. I am determined to dedicate myself to helping premature babies until death.” Said the Professor.
Short Biography of Prof. Raldi Artono Koestoer
Raldi Artono Koestoer completed his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia, in 1978. After various jobs, he re-registered as a lecturer in 1979 and a year later went to France. One year of special study at l'ENSMA (Poitiers) then continued to the Universite de Paris Val de Marne in Creteil, finishing in 1985 as a Docteur-Ingenieur. His first book was published in 1988 about computers, followed by a second book in 1994 titled - Systems and Two-Phase Flows -. There are still several other books made in the field of Heat Transfer, and several others were only published for internal purposes. Creating about forty national papers and four international papers.
He has been teaching Heat Transfer since 1985 and only stopped in 2004. Some other subjects include: Technical Measurements, Research Methodology, and this year teaching Engineering Professional Study. In 2006, he started a medical device production business (Baby Incubator), and by July 2007, there were already more than 30 units. And now he is perfecting his humanitarian mission and calling to be a savior of premature babies by providing free portable incubators.