Preterm Birth

Saifuddin Ahmed of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. will develop and test a low-cost, reusable warming jacket for use in preventing hypothermia in preterm babies. The jacket uses the non-toxic salt solution currently used for hand warmers and muscle pain relief pads and could be used in tandem with Kangaroo Mother Care in developing countries where electricity and incubators are not available.

Kathleen Bongiovanni of Seattle Children's Hospital in the U.S. will test whether oral fluids routinely suctioned from newborns mouths immediately after delivery - instead of fluids collected by amniocentesis or aspiration - can be used in a surfactant foam stability test to diagnose lung immaturity and predict respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). The non-invasive sample collection would enable skilled birth attendants in developing countries to detect lung immaturity in premature babies and reduce RDS-associated morbidity and mortality.

Heather Underwood of the University of Colorado, Boulder in the U.S. will develop and field test an interactive digital pen that works in conjunction with the partograph, a widely adopted labor monitoring graph, to validate data entered on the graph and provide alerts to health care workers regarding conditions that need additional observation or intervention.

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.

Todd Coleman of the University of California, San Diego in the U.S. along with John Rogers of the University of Illinois will develop wireless tattoo-like electronics to continuously monitor vital signs of the pregnant mother and fetus. The devices have the potential to be inexpensively mass produced, which could advance epidemiological studies of preterm birth.

Chetan Patil of Temple University in the U.S. is adapting camera mobile phones for the simple and low cost measurement of bilirubin levels to identify jaundice in newborns by photographing the skin. Jaundice is a common disorder in newborns and can often be easily treated with sunlight. In developed countries, bilirubin measurements are standard-of-care, but in low resource settings, detection can be prohibitively expensive. If jaundice is not treated, it can lead to long-term disabilities.