It’s a startling statistic. Every year, 70,000 women around the world basically bleed to death after childbirth. That averages out to nearly 200 deaths a day and makes postpartum hemorrhage a leading cause of maternal deaths.
Now a new study points to a surprisingly simple and inexpensive solution: Basically, if the woman lies on a plastic sheet with a small transparent pouch at the other end to collect the blood, the medical team has an immediate sense of how much danger she’s in and can take swift action.
The cost of the sheet-with-a-pouch: Between $1-2.
A more precise measurement of blood loss with a ‘drape’
The study, carried out in 80 hospitals across four African countries, used a simple device called a “drape” to collect and measure the amount of blood from women who have just given birth. The device, combined with a bundle of treatment options recommended by the World Health Organization, reduced the number of women experiencing severe bleeding by 60%. The study also found a reduction in maternal deaths from bleeding.
This intervention “is really a game changer in preventing maternal deaths,” says Deekshita Ramanarayanan, a program associate with the Wilson’s Center’s Maternal Health Initiative, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “Over a quarter of maternal deaths can be attributed to postpartum hemorrhage,” she adds.
Postpartum hemorrhage is defined as bleeding more than 500 milliliters (a bit more than 2 cups) within 24 hours of giving birth. It happens to an estimated 14 million women every year. Yet about half of the cases go undetected.
The reason so many cases are missed is because health-care providers use an inexact approach to gauge how much blood a new mother has lost, says Dr. Arri Coomarasamy, a gynecologist at the University of Birmingham and an author of the new study.
“The usual practice is to visually estimate how much blood a woman has lost after childbirth,” he says. “The health-care provider would look under the woman, look at…
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