Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

Globally, infection leading to sepsis in infants mimics many conditions and hence early diagnosis is difficult. However, failure to treat early with antibiotics will uniformly lead to death or major disability. As a result, more neonates are unnecessarily treated with antibiotics. Over-treatment of neonates creates resistant superbugs and wastes scarce resources.

In Myanmar, 200 mothers die per 100,000 live births and 62 children die per 1,000 live births before the age of 5. These are the worst rates in the region. Maternal anaemia, jaundice, and beriberi comprise most of the deaths, which are preventable through greater access to information and health facilities -- only one-third of deliveries are facility-based. Our idea is to scale up our maymay app (www.koekoetech.com/maymay) nationwide and add telemedicine, appointments scheduling, and more content.

Postpartum Depression (PPD) is a condition that occurs in approximately 10- 18% of women following the birth of a child, and is a critical risk to new mothers and their babies. Research show that support programs are effective in assisting women manage and overcome their PPD. ParentUp is a mobile phone service which aims to provide informational and emotional support from pregnancy until a child’s early years, and can also be used by new dads. Through the Short Messaging System (SMS) channel, new parents will opt-in to receive information and mothers may be screened for PPD.

The bold idea (www.statscongo.com) is the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) first collaborative healthcare database of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH). The aim is to turn big clinical data for MNCH, into big insights. By assessing variations of patterns of accessing health services, treatments, and patient management and treatment outcomes. While disseminating clinical findings through a web-based data visualization.

Miracradle is neonatal bed that relies on phase change materials to help lower and regulate the body temperature of neonates suffering from birth asphyxia, a leading cause of neonatal mortality and brain damage in Kenya. This treatment method has been shown to be effective and more economical than any of its competitors. Miracradle's phase change technology has the added advantages of only requiring minimal supervision and minimal electrical access needed for its use.

Women suffering from mental health disorders are at higher risk of pregnancy-related illness and death, including postpartum suicide. Further, their children suffer from low birth weight, under-nutrition due to early cessation of breastfeeding, and increased rates of diarrheal diseases and neonatal mortality. This is especially true in rural India, where estimates show a higher burden of perinatal mental illness than in other contexts, and where structural violence related to fetal sex-preference is linked to poor health outcomes and impaired economic development.

Diagnosis of malaria in pregnancy is inadequate. Current testing modalities lack the sensitivity to detect low level infections in expectant mothers. The National Strategy to eliminate malaria in Ethiopia and other sub-Saharan countries in the next 10 years will demand highly sensitive diagnostics in patients with such low level infections. Our group has validated a DNA based test for malaria called "LAMP" and shown 30% greater detection of malaria in some cases. In pregnant mothers, LAMP detects close to 4% more cases than microscopy in a pilot study.

HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age (15-44) in the world, challenging efforts to reduce maternal mortality rates. The situation is worse in Africa slums and rural areas. Many women learn their HIV status through antenatal and childbirth services. But only 10% of women in the Kibera slums (Nairobi) receive antenatal care. ChildsLife and Last Mile4D will integrate mobile technologies and maternal services to improve access to care among HIV positive women and girls using mobikits; solar-powered mobile natal kits.

All mothers want healthy babies, even in Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries. Despite free prenatal care, access remains an issue for rural women, as this often means walking for an entire day through harsh conditions. As a consequence, nearly 70% receive only 1 of the 4 recommended visits, putting themselves and their babies at risk. What if we could give them convenient access to a nurse without the need for travel? Currently community health workers (CHWs), who are used to bridge the existing service, often work in isolation and without ready access to nurses’ expertise.

Hope Through Health (HTH) has developed a service delivery innovation that is transforming public healthcare systems in underserved nations like Togo. HTH’s approach implements a bold new service delivery model in partnership with the Togolese Ministry of Health (MOH) to strengthen primary health care (PHC) across RMNCH including family planning (FP). On the community-level, this model will build demand, by training and equipping local women as community health workers to effectively educate and enroll women into potentially life changing FP programs.