Tool/Machine

Phototherapy is a pediatrics medical device used to treat jaundice in neonates. Jaundice is yellowish skin in neonates. Neonatal jaundice occurs in at least 60% of term infants around the world. It needs phototherapy for treatment. If it is untreated by phototherapy light, it can cause irreversible brain damage and other infections. Due to lack of phototherapy units many neonates are exposed to aforementioned health problems and death.In remote areas health facilities with thousands of deliveries there is lack of and absence of this machine.

During intrapartum period, world faces 1.2 million intrapartum stillbirths and 2,25,000 maternal deaths every year. India alone accounts for around 130 maternal deaths everyday. More than 80% deliveries occur with the assistance of midwives in low resource healthcare settings in India. WHO Partograph is designed to monitor and make timely interventions to prevent complications during the intrapartum period. During this period, labor vitals recording and interpretations from the partograph are virtually absent.

Puerperal sepsis is the second leading cause of maternal mortality after postpartum hemorrhage accounting for 15% of maternal deaths.At Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital(MRRH) in Uganda, puerperal sepsis was found to be the leading cause of maternal mortality accounting for 30.9% of maternal deaths (1).The prevalence of wound sepsis following cesarean delivery is 15.5%.At MRRH, the rate of C-section was estimated to be 25% in 2011 which is higher than the 15% rate recommended by the WHO.

Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH):Defined as the loss of more than 500 ml or 1,000 ml of blood within the first 24 hours following childbirth. PPH is the leading cause of maternal mortality in developing countries and Africa as a whole. Amidst the mushrooming approaches to overcome this condition, Globally it still occurs about 8.7 million times and results in 44,000 to 86,000 deaths per year making it the leading cause of death during pregnancy, thus a global concern.

According to WHO every year 15 million babies born preterm and the number is rising. Over 1 million babies die annually due to preterm. Key to treatment and prevention to preterm labor is early diagnosis. Existing expensive devices or devices which requires skilled professionals do not meet the criteria’s and performance in resource poor settings. Fetal heart rate and contractions monitoring is important during third trimester. Premature contractions or abnormal fetal heart rate can lead to complications like stillbirth, preterm birth and low birth weight baby.

Perinatal asphyxic encephalopathy (PAE) causes one million deaths and innumerable cases of cerebral palsy pa, Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) interventions, although proven and widely used in high-income economies (H-I), are not available in LM-I settings because of the high unit cost ($3K - $25Kt), or even if they are available in hospitals are inaccessible: huge numbers of PAE newborns die due to the impossibility of transporting babies to hospital before the 6 hrs therapeutic window closes.

Sepsis and pneumonia cause 28% of infant mortality; early intervention saves lives. In India however, critical babies are often discharged to uneducated homes where parents miss early signs. The govt’s home care programs (ASHA, ANM) for high-risk babies require significant manpower and have in-frequent visits. Working with Indian Govt (NHM) and UNICEF officials, we are developing CareCradle: a home based remote monitoring system for high-risk infants. Daily, a single button push triggers measurement of the baby’s weight, temperature and records a 5-min video.

Validation of an onsite, easy-to-use chlorine generator (SE Flow) for infection prevention and control in labor wards

Validation of a POC Bilirubin Measurement to Diagnose Neonatal Jaundice and Monitor Phototherapy in Hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa

Smart Sclera Screening of Jaundiced Newborns in Ghana