Pump It Up: How a Male Condom and an Air Pump Can Save Mothers' Lives Worldwide
Jibon Health Technologies is a social enterprise startup that I co-founded along with four biomedical engineers from Columbia University. Our project, which was the culmination of a yearlong engineering project, began with identifying a global health issue and developing a novel solution.
Postpartum Hemorrhage (excessive bleeding after childbirth) is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide, which immediately captured our interest. 99% of these deaths are in developing countries and nearly all of them are preventable. Why is there such a drastic disparity in maternal health? This tragedy takes root from the extreme poverty experienced by women in vulnerable populations, especially so in developing nations.
Millions of mothers around the world deliver at home with the help of midwives or traditional birth attendants. Often when such women experience PPH, it is difficult to properly manage the excessive bleeding without appropriate medical interventions. This complication can cause the mother to bleed to death within a few hours after childbirth en route to a hospital.
After 8 months of innovative hard work alongside leading medical and engineering experts we invented Tampostat, a device that is not only affordable but also easy enough to use by birth attendants with basic training.
Our solution brings affordable and safe obstetric care to mothers around the world. Similar in concept to a balloon tamponade, Tampostat reduces PPH by inflating a condom to apply pressure onto the uterine wall. Minimizing the amount of blood loss gives these mothers additional time to reach a hospital to receive further treatment. This innovative way to treat PPH caught Columbia University’s attention, which awarded the Jibon team with its prestigious Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Capstone award.
Currently we are raising funds to conduct clinical trials in Bangladesh at two of the nation’s premiere medical hospitals. Every dollar raised will help us fulfill our mission of bringing affordable healthcare to the developing world.
Our project is currently featured on Medstartr, a crowdfunding platform for medical solutions, as part of its Saving a Million Mothers campaign.
For more information, please visit www.jibonhealth.com.
Click here to watch a video about the Tampostat.