Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is preventable where health services are available and accessible. In the post conflict areas of Bakassi, 77% of pregnant women (PW) do not attend antenatal clinics thus increasing the risk of MTCT. This Bold Idea approaches this problem with a package of care delivered by low-literate community women ("android mamas") from pregnancy, delivery to breastfeeding. This project aims to expedite health seeking habits among low-literate women and their families in rural areas by combining a novel approach to audio visual learning.

Khushi Baby (KB) is a wearable mHealth platform tracking maternal & child health to the last mile. Our mission is to reduce infant and maternal mortality due to vaccine-preventable diseases in India. Our system is comprised of a culturally tailored NFC necklace, which digitally stores immunization & health records for pregnant mothers and children; the necklace interfaces with a mobile app to update records with a simple tap. The data is synced to a dashboard for health officials to manage care delivery resources.

Placing an endotracheal tube (ETT) is an essential part of respiratory support for newborns who are unable to breathe. Unfortunately, placing the ETT into the esophagus (swallowing tube) instead of the airway occurs commonly, and current methods to detect this error are notoriously unreliable and slow, depriving the brains of these fragile newborns of oxygen long enough to cause permanent damage. Portable ultrasound of the neck has recently emerged as a powerful improvement for detecting esophageal ETTs.

Uberlance is a private-public mobile-App based rideshare program which is envisioned to facilitate the provision of lifesaving transport to expectant pregnant women in remote resource-limited settings where traditional ambulances are not well managed and scarce. It borrows the successful independent business models of other rideshare programs globally, where private vehicle owners can meet certain standards and be linked to customers.

Our Bold Idea is the Ukweli Test Strip - a low-cost test for Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), in rural areas of Sierra Leone, where women currently lack an affordable tool for screening UTIs. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to UTIs: In sub-Saharan Africa, 30-50% of pregnant women will contract one. UTIs often go undiagnosed because of barriers to testing, including cost, accessibility and social stigma.

Men in Afghan refugee (IDP) camps make health decisions relating to women accessing health services, including family planning (FP). Men and women want smaller families but lack knowledge and skills to achieve this. Knowledge, change in male attitude, empowerment of women and a viable franchise model are required to achieve wide benefit from FP (smaller family size, and healthier mothers with reduced mortality from unwanted pregnancy and less chronic anemia; plus secondary benefits from longer breast feeding of infants, better weight gain and increased mother infant interaction.

Recent evidence show that many stillbirths are preventable and urgently calls for appropriate strategies to improve awareness of risk factors and antenatal detection of at-risk babies(1). However, there is no accurate diagnostic approach to identify fetuses at risk (2,3). The current sonographic method is associated with a high false-positive rate and a significant false-negative risk(4). In addition, community awareness remains acutely low, with no strategies to support social -reintegration(5)

Studies have shown an increased risk of maternal morbidity and mortality in the first week after delivery, and in Uganda, less than 50% of new mothers have access to postpartum care services. Propelling motherhood proposes to implement an innovative collaborative care model to efficiently provide postpartum care in rural Uganda to improve maternal health outcomes. Our experience in Uganda is that many women do not seek postpartum care, largely due to negative perceptions around seeking care outside the home, limited access to care facilities, and lack of knowledge.

Low access to health services lead to child malnutrition in northern Ghana. About 60% of Ghana’s children are anaemic. Northern region has a rate of 82%, exceeding the WHO’s 40% showing severe public health problem. Radio is cheap and popular among most vulnerable communities in African nations. For example, of 365 northern Ghana farmers, 88.5% indicated that they listened to the radio daily, and most residents prefer drama programs . Our Bold idea, based on the health belief model, uses radio messages as cues to positive behaviours in northern region of Ghana.

Rh disease, a condition caused by incompatibility between maternal and fetal blood, is a significant public health problem that causes fetal and neonatal death. Among surviving newborns, Rh disease can lead to severe jaundice, anemia, and brain damage. While Rh disease has been virtually eradicated in high-income countries, it remains a serious problem in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where proven prevention strategies have been challenging to implement.