Letter From The Director
Dear friends,
I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying this holiday season.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your generous support of
the Safe Motherhood Program at UCSF. As you know, our mission is to eradicate pregnancy-related
death and disability globally. Your contributions have helped us to continue conducting research, training providers in developing
countries, educating future leaders in the U.S., and disseminating the tools and information needed to save the lives of countless women in developing countries.
I am delighted to provide this brief summary of our ongoing efforts.
Central to our program is the LifeWrap device, a non-pneumatic anti-shock garment (NASG) that providers can quickly and easily use to assist women
suffering from obstetric hemorrhage. In places where childbirth is a matter of life and death, this life-saving device is absolutely critical to women’s well being.
Hadiza, a woman in Nigeria who nearly bled to death after the birth of her twins, told us,
"I was not okay that day. I was fighting for my life. I was struggling. Thank God that the doctors asked to use the LifeWrap.
That saved my life. Because I believe that if they had not used it on me, I might have died before I made it to the [operating] theatre."
At all of our sites, we study the efficacy of the LifeWrap device on women with obstetric hemorrhage. In Nigeria, we have completed our study and by all measures, the LifeWrap was a great success. Over the course of four years, we collected data from 756 women. The results show a 70 percent decrease in mean measured blood loss between the groups and a 63 percent decrease in maternal deaths and morbidity. We continue to expand the program in Nigeria, with our partner Pathfinder International, with whom we are also introducing the LifeWrap to India. Likewise, our Egypt study of 990 women shows great promise. Although we have to wait for publication of the results (forthcoming early 2010) before we can share them, we are pleased and encouraged by the findings. In Zambia and Zimbabwe, we are conducting a large-scale randomized clinical trial, and are at the phase of introducing the LifeWrap at the primary health care level, to determine if placing the LifeWrap on women before they are transported to a Referral Hospital (RH) decreases maternal mortality and morbidity. (Our studies thus far focus on using the device at the RH level of care, after the women have already been transported.) We expect to conclude this study in 2012.
Dissemination of our research findings to our colleagues in public health, obstetrics, and gynecology at the international and global level is another important element of our program. In addition to our many presentations this year, in October at the 2009 Federation of International Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO) World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics in Cape Town, South Africa, team members from the Safe Motherhood Program projects in Nigeria, Egypt, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and UCSF gave more than a dozen presentations on our maternal health work. This was an important chance for our team to demonstrate its leadership in the field and a unique opportunity to present hard-hitting data to health ministers and policy makers from participating countries, as well as representatives from international groups such as the World Health Organization.
Our commitment to education extends to training young people who are considering a career in health or are just starting their careers.
We take this duty to foster future generations of public health professionals very seriously, and in return, we are privileged to work with many passionate
and talented interns on the LifeWrap project. This year we had interns from Columbia University School of Medicine and School of Public Health, UC Berkeley School
of Public Health, and UCSF School of Medicine. Ms. Yael Danovitch, a former intern, told us,
"The Safe Motherhood Project has ignited within me a passion and commitment to maternal health that I intend to pursue through a
career in medicine and public health."
As part of my work, I continue to publish in scientific journals. In 2009 alone, my teams and I have published half a dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals,
including the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. The success of our programs and outreach has not gone unnoticed by the mainstream media.
The pressing issue of preventable maternal death has been addressed by major media outlets including the BBC, New York Times, and KCBS radio.
I was featured on the front page of the Mother’s Day issue of the Marin Independent Journal and GOOD magazine. In order to keep our friends like you up to date on our work,
we now have a monthly online newsletter, available at our main site: www.lifewraps.org.
Additionally, we have created a LifeWrap page on Facebook and we posted on YouTube a short video of some training and patient footage we recorded in
Zambia
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQM36d6fNxg).
Finally, I am excited to tell you about our Mother's Day event, tentatively scheduled for May 4, 2010. This fundraiser will feature a reception and silent auction. Items for auction include a group of Shona stone sculptures created for us by artists in Zimbabwe. I hope you will join us to honor a mother in your life and help us to save the lives of many more mothers with the LifeWrap. We will be sure to send you more details closer to the event. In the meantime, if you have services or items you would like to donate for the auction, please contact Jessica Morris at 415-597-9205 or lifewrapsinfo@gmail.com.
Our team’s accomplishments are possible thanks to your generosity. I am deeply grateful for your confidence in our work and for recognizing the critical need for the Safe Motherhood Program. I look forward to sending you future updates and I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a peaceful and healthy 2010.
Sincerely,
Suellen Miller, CNM, PhD