A Million Mothers: MedStartr’s First Campaign
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, so we thought there wasn’t a better month to begin our “Million Mothers” campaign. All month long, we’ll be featuring and launching projects that protect the health of mothers and women around the world.
Read about the three projects that inspired Our “Million Mothers” campaign (#MillionMothers):
The First — Five biomedical engineering students created Tampostat, a device used to minimize bleeding after childbirth. Excessive bleeding, or post-partum hemorrhaging (PPH) causes up to 60% of maternal mortality in the developing world. Their project uses readily accessible and cheap components, such as condoms that are often donated by NGOs and blood pressure monitor pumps. The best part is that their device costs under $10 to produce whereas other tamponades on the market cost $200-300.
The Second — The Breast Cancer Checklist book is a guide for women on what to do before, during, and after surgery, chemo, and radiation and was written by a breast cancer survivor herself. The book includes dozens of holistic suggestions that fall through the gaps of care when running between several different doctors and is based on over 700 medical studies.
Next week, check back for a new project — an mHealth app that provides reminders, tutorials, and tracking of breast health history for patients, women with the BRCA1 gene, and other women in general. They’re also working on a medical device that connects to the iPhone.
The Third — Saving Mothers project is an NGO (affiliated with the Mt.Sinai hospital) who is crowdfunding a medical trip down to the Dominican Republic in order to perform operations on women with reproductive health related issues and to train community health workers.
Maternal & Child Health (MCH) is one of the most commonly funded areas of global health and some of the most prominent Millennium Development Goals. MedStartr is trying to play a crucial part by catalyzing the extension of healthcare to women in need, not just in the US, but around the world as well.
In addition to launching and featuring several projects be on the lookout for a very special partnership with an organization that lists medical devices specifically created for developing countries. Their work ensures that low cost, but highly efficient technologies reach those people most in need.
So, this October, in addition to choosing a Halloween costume, be sure to keep checking out our homepage and our newsletters for news on projects that are prioritizing women’s health and innovations that make healthcare so much more accessible. And Tweet to us (@MedStartr) if you know of a startup doing something similar so that we can reach out to them!