Preterm Birth

Ashish Ganguly and colleagues from the CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology in India will make an affordable paper-based diagnostic to quickly and precisely measure plasma gelsolin levels in expectant mothers to help predict premature delivery and postpartum recovery, thereby reducing new mother and child mortality rates. They will determine the value of plasma gelsolin levels for predicting postpartum-related problems using patient sampling and an animal model of preterm birth.

Frans Walther of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in the U.S. will adapt a low-cost synthetic lung surfactant for aerosol delivery as a non-invasive and simple method to support breathing in premature infants. Surfactant is composed of lipids and proteins, and keeps the lungs open during expiration. It is normally administered to premature infants with breathing difficulties by tracheal intubation, which can be problematic in low-resource settings and cause side effects.

In Peru, 10% of all births are preterm. Preterm babies are subject to repetitive, invasive procedures in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), causing pain and stress that are associated with neurobehavioural and developmental issues. While tactile stimulation in the form of massage therapy has shown to reduce stress and have positive effects on growth and development of preterm infants, it can be difficult to provide for babies in incubators.

Strengthening Health Systems for High-Risk Newborn Care: An Integrated Hospital-Community GIS System for Sustainable Delivery of Quality Care during Early Child Brain Development in Rural Uganda

One third of child deaths in Guyana result from respiratory distress or bacterial infection in the first few weeks of life. Although infant mortality rates have improved in Guyana, the numbers today correspond with those in the U.S. and Canada in the early 1970s, before the extensive availability of neonatal intensive care units. Slightly under half of all babies in Guyana are born in the nation’s largest city and capital, at Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

Randomized Open Controlled Trial on Kangaroo Mother Care versus Traditional Care for Low-Birth-Weight Infants: Patient Centered Outcomes at the Age of 18 years

Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) delivered by a health worker in hospitals has shown to result in improved survival and breastfeeding of newborns. However, the coverage of KMC remains low as hospital care is not available to many families in low-resource settings.  The innovators want to introduce a new concept: Community Kangaroo Mother Care (CKMC), a low cost intervention delivered at home that can reach low-birth-weight babies in a sustainable way, babies who otherwise may have been neglected.

Every year, approximately 2.6 million stillbirths (SB) occur and 20 million low birth-weight (LBW) babies are born worldwide. The vast majority of these cases occur in low- and middle-income countries. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of SB globally and has made the least progress in reducing this number. Similarly, this region has some of the highest rates of LBW in the world. Recently, several studies have identified sleeping on the back during pregnancy as a potential risk factor for having SB or LBW baby.

Incidence of post-operative infection in developing countries occurs in 5 to 50 percent of patients. Neonatal infection rates are 3 to 20 times higher than in industrialized nations. This project will supply low cost sterilizers and provide education for health workers sterilizing surgical instruments, with a focus on improving operating room infection control practices and reducing the incidence of post-operative infections in West African countries such as Guinea and Republic of the Congo. For more information visit http://www.spedc.org/.