Jhpiego Venture Focuses on Saving Lives of Mothers, Newborns With New, Innovative Technologies for Global Health Workers

BALTIMORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- From a university lab in Baltimore to a medical device powerhouse in Stavanger, Norway, a team of student biomedical engineers, public health experts and industrial innovators are on a mission to save the estimated 350,000 women who die each year from pregnancy complications and up to 2 million babies who die within the first 24 hours of life.

It’s a daunting challenge, but the founding partners of Day of Birth Alliance say helping front line health workers provide integrated care for mothers and babies during labor, at birth and after can make the difference.

“Our alliance is about never separating moms from babies, and the care both the mother and baby need at birth,” said Dr. Harshad Sanghvi, the medical director of Jhpiego, a global health nonprofit, Johns Hopkins University affiliate, and founding member of the alliance.

This venture pairs Jhpiego’s global health experts and their nearly 40 years of experience in the field with the bright engineering stars of the Johns Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID), and the proven executives from Laerdal Global Health, a not-for-profit off-shoot of the successful medical device manufacturer, Laerdal Medical.

The founders of this global health alliance, including Dr. Sanghvi, Tore Laerdal and Dr. Youseph Yazdi, of JHU’s CBID, and student engineers will be available for interviews January 25-26 at Jhpiego offices in Baltimore. The team will discuss their 2012 prospects to address global health challenges and save lives.

The alliance’s goal is to develop new tools and technologies to help diagnose and assess potentially life-threatening conditions that would normally elude frontline health workers in low-resource settings. Each year, an estimated 350,000 women die from pregnancy complications and up to 2 million babies die within the first 24 hours of life.

About 99 percent of these deaths occur in low-resource settings and can be prevented with the right equipment. The alliance is working on devices that will help pinpoint complications of labor as well as assist newborns in taking their first breaths.

About Jhpiego

Jhpiego, (www.jhpiego.org), works to prevent the needless deaths of women and families across the globe by breaking down barriers to high-quality health care for vulnerable populations.



CONTACT:

Profiles, Inc.
Jamie Watt Arnold, 410-243-3790
215-284-5789 (mobile)
[email protected]

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  Maryland

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Women  Health  Hospitals  Medical Devices  Other Health  Baby/Maternity  Consumer

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