Preterm Birth

Low-birth-weight (LBW) is a major adverse pregnancy outcome in resource-poor countries which is highly associated with biomass fuel’s exposure during cooking. To address this problem, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) propose a “100-dollar-kitchen” with an improved cookstove for resource-poor settings. If proven successful, this exposure-effect intervention will be a pioneering innovation in reducing LBW in resource-limited societies. Follow International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh on Twitter @icddr_b"

Every year, more than one million of an estimated 15 million babies born preterm die from preterm-related complications, and many that do survive face life-long disabilities or health complications. A pessary (silicone ring) placed around the cervix (during the second part of the pregnancy) in high-risk mothers may help prevent prematurity. This project’s goal is to adapt to resource-low countries, validate and then disseminate this technique. For more information visit http://www.crc.chus.qc.ca/.

With bleeding and infection being the two largest causes of maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa in childbirth, this project aims to distribute low-cost medication for women in rural Africa to take after delivery in the home setting, in hopes of saving many lives.

The study is aimed at developing a novel, low-cost test for pre-term birth (PTB). The proposal is intended to test and validate the low-cost salivary progesterone as a point-of-care (POC) test for detecting risk of PTBs in rural community settings of India. Offering non-invasive sampling of biological fluid that is easy to collect, the study allows validation of saliva from a large cohort of pregnant women residing in low-resource community settings.

The study aims to assess the effect of depression on pregnancy and develop biomarkers for adverse pregnancy outcomes. It plans to analyze stress outcomes on pregnancy, fetal growth and birth weight. The overall aim of the study is to determine stress biomarkers for early detection of mothers at risk of preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and to develop interventions to reduce stress and reduce adverse birth outcomes.

The project is aimed at building better bio-banks for long-term storage of bio-specimens. It has been planned to enroll a cohort of pregnant women, who are less than 20 weeks of gestation and follow them until delivery to study their vulnerability to environmental, clinical and biological factors. The study will contribute to our understanding of the association of these various factors with preterm birth (PTB).

With providing compact ultrasound devices, many pregnant women can benefit from prenatal diagnosis.

Ahsan Khandoker of Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates will build a low-cost, non-invasive abdominal phonogram device that can be used on a mobile phone to assess sounds that indicate fetal well being such as heart rate and body movement. The device will employ a software algorithm to extract fetal noises in an acoustic signal from maternal and environmental noises, allowing health care workers in remote locations to conduct obstetric assessments without expensive or invasive equipment.

Douglas Weibel of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S. proposes to develop a portable diagnostic system that uses inexpensive plastic assay cartridges that wick samples into chambers loaded with reagents to detect bacteria associated with neonatal sepsis. The cartridges will be attached to a smart phone loaded with an application that collects data and transmits results to a clinical lab for further treatment instructions.

Sudhin Thayyil of the University College London in the United Kingdom, along with Seetha Shankaran of Wayne State University in the U.S. and Balraj Guhan of Calicut Medical College in India, will develop and validate a low-cost, low-technology whole body cooling device that operates on a proven servo-controlled algorithm with minimal supervision. This device could reduce death and disability resulting from neonatal encephalopathy in developing countries where expensive cooling equipment and trained healthcare providers are scarce.