Two Stanford-developed projects aimed at curbing preventable deaths in newborn babies have been selected as finalists in a contest hosted by Saving Lives at Birth. The contest rewards innovative and cost-effective ideas with the funding needed to realize them; the Stanford projects, which have ties to the Center for Innovation in Global Health, are two of 77 finalists chosen from the contest's initial 600 applicants.
In the first, Stanford researchers from D-Rev developed two affordable phototherapy devices for rural clinics and district hospitals in low-income countries. The devices would serve to treat severe neonatal jaundice, a major cause of newborn death and brain damage in countries where such devices have typically been overpriced and difficult to maintain.
A second project tackles obstetric hemorrhage (blood loss), the leading cause of maternal mortality in developing countries, via a low-cost, high-accuracy mobile platform that would monitor blood loss in real time. The platform involves an application that can be downloaded to an inexpensive mobile phone.
Voting for the 2011 Saving Lives at Birth Challenge ends tomorrow (July 27). You can cast your vote for both projects here.
Photo by Ben Cline features a jaundiced Nigerian newborn treated using the phototherapy device Brilliance
