Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

This project confronts the barriers to maternal and neo-natal health constructed and maintained by some community and religious leaders (CRLs) in six states of Nigeria. CRLs provide the ideology, messages and personal life examples which counter the myriad maternal and neonatal health interventions in this region. Previous interventions avoided resistant CRLs, engaging only liberal scholars in one-off events such as workshops. This has failed to bring down the barriers and the death rates persist.

We seek to address a critical fourth delay that sustains high rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in western Kenya: the delay in a community's accountability to its mothers and infants. We will develop an innovative information technology that fosters rapid communication and feedback between mothers, their communities, and their healthcare providers: The Mother-Baby Health Network.

We propose to scale up development and deploy in Rwandan community-level clinics a novel, low-cost, front-line diagnostic testing device that enables simultaneous detection of HIV and syphilis. This device requires just one finger-pricked volume of blood, and performs diagnostic testing that is as accurate as laboratory testing. Integrated into this diagnostic instrument is an GPRS mobile health capability which performs real-time synchronization of data to a central health records database using the cell-phone network or orbiting satellites.

This proposal involves testing an innovative fetal heart rate monitor powered by human energy (winner of the global INDEX design award) and mobile phone based mortality audit data to improve timely and appropriate action. Uganda's new national paper-based mortality audit system will be adapted to a mobile phone platform to capture maternal and neonatal deaths and stillbirths, and use this data to improve intrapartum monitoring and response. Facilities will collect this data and will be linked to communities using cell phones to request emergency transport and report births and deaths.

Dr. Ashish Jain, of Hindu Rau Hospital in Delhi, India, has developed an improvised bubble CPAP device that relies solely on an oxygen source, water, and parts commonly found in neonatal intensive care units across India. Our proposal aims to further enhance this device by combining it with an innovative oxygen blender that requires neither electricity nor a pressurized source of air and is intended to reduce the hazard associated with providing infants 100 percent oxygen. In addition, Dr.

We propose to develop a novel once-daily microencapsulated micronutrient powder containing iron, folic acid, and calcium (Prenatal Sprinkles) to overcome barriers to the integration of calcium into prenatal care in developing countries. If successful, our innovation - "differential time-release microencapsulation" - will mask the taste of iron and the gritty tongue-feel of calcium, and facilitate differential iron and calcium absorption.

Through a partnership between bioengineers at Rice University, pediatricians at the University of Malawi and Baylor College of Medicine, and industrial design engineers from 3rd Stone Design have designed a novel, rugged bubble Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (bCPAP) system which can be made in small volume at low-cost.

Malezi-Bora is a mobile application, availed in local languages, with audio content regarding maternal and newborn health. It works on ultra-low-cost handsets and leverages village social networks. It utilizes a pay-it-forward business model, designed to incentivize mothers to virally share its content, and mapping technology to identify mothers in distress. The application focuses on addressing the inability of current health information-sharing systems gaining critical-mass usage and the inability of community health workers to reach every mother.

This project will involve the development of a novel aerosol delivery system for oxytocin that can be inhaled by patients from a simple, disposable device immediately after childbirth. This approach will remove the need for sterile conditions and trained health workers for administration of oxytocin. It will eliminate the risk of needle-stick injuries, transmission of blood-borne viruses and the costs associated with disposal of sharps and biohazard waste materials, as well as provide a more stable formulation of the drug that does not require cold-chain storage.

Preterm birth leads to more annual neonatal deaths (1 million) than any other single cause; these deaths primarily occur in low income settings where many infants are born at home and gestational age is rarely assessed. Innovative ways to identify preterm infants in the community are needed to facilitate rapid and appropriate targeting of interventions and referral.