Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

Despite known benefits of Kangaroo Care (KC), uptake is low. KC has been shown to promote healthy growth related to reductions in hypothermia, sepsis, and death [1]. It is highly beneficial for 10 mil premature or Low Birth Weight Indian babies. Parents do not practice adequate KC in hospital or home; doing it incorrectly/for significantly short episodes. Unfortunately, KC promoters do not have tools to measure amount/quality of KC received aside from parents' reporting, which is unreliable.

The innovation is “Virtual Mentor" that when triggered by a spoken command interacts audibly with the birth attendant during a postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) event to increase adherence to established management algorithms and timeliness of interventions. We will use an “off-the-shelf" package to rapidly and inexpensively develop the prototype for a PPH VM--the Amazon Alexa device.

60% of 9 mil Indian low-weight babies are born at hospitals with limited or no specialized neonatal care; this makes transport to higher centers necessary for these neonates. With a lack of reliable transport options parents are often forced to use unorganized systems like motorbikes without any transport stabilization. Evidence suggests that mortality in transported newborns is much higher than inborn babies due to transport-induced hypothermia, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, and apnea. [1, 2, 3, 4].

With over 1/3rd of births unregistered in developing countries, the lack of reliable infant identification methods is a major bottleneck for governments, aid agencies, and NGOs in the delivery health services. The inability to link neonates to a health record means healthcare providers often have no idea if the child has been immunized. We propose to develop fingerprinting software and hardware capable of identifying newborns.

Postpartum depression (PPD) has an estimated prevalence rate of about 24.4% amongst Indian women, or over 6 million women per year [1]. Most cases go undetected due to lack of awareness and stigma. Research has identified India-specific triggers for PPD including son-preference mentality and problems with spouse or in-laws. We've seen this first-hand in our work with newborns in Indian govt NICUs and have seen how it can affect the mother and the critical newborn.

Maternal mortality ratios in Ghana referral hospitals remain as high as 957-1,004/100,000 live births. Poor outcomes and dismal quality of care stem from delayed identification of complications upon arrival; women wait can hours or even days for evaluation and treatment. Kybele-Ghana will implement its obstetric triage program to six referral hospitals over two years, ultimately reaching 80% of Ghana's tertiary hospitals.

Malaria is a scourge of pregnant women in developing countries, causing maternal, perinatal and infant mortality. Sanaria's PfSPZ Vaccine prevents malaria infection both in laboratory settings and in Africa. This project will test if the vaccine prevents infection during pregnancy and improves newborn outcomes in order to determine the protective effects of vaccination against the background of a pregnancy registry study enrolling ~900 women each year in Ouelessebougou, Mali.

Newborns are unable to regulate their body temperature often leading to hypothermia, a condition affecting up to 85% of newborns globally and approximately 4-12 million Indian newborns yearly. The BEMPU Hypothermia Alert Device is a newborn temperature-monitoring wristband that alerts caregivers if their newborn is hypothermic enabling intervention well before complications or death can occur.

UNICEF, together with the Department of Health (DOH) and PhilHealth collaborated to develop a national health insurance benefit package for prematurity and small babies launched in late 2016. The project seeks to catalyze the readiness of government hospitals to be contracted for the special health financing package.