Portable ultrasound device addresses healthcare for moms in rural areas

Thirteen Filipino mothers die every day due to complications in child birth.

That’s exactly what statistics will tell you. But what the figure doesn’t tell you is this: Mothers remain unaware of the nature of their pregnancies due to the lack of proper neonatal care, with complications only revealing itself during child birth, leaving less time for mothers and newborns from being saved.

They say maternal death due to complications is easily preventable when diagnosed early. But in places where even clean water and electricity are luxuries, maternal healthcare remains to be a dream.

Most often, majority of expectant mothers at risk live in places hard to find on the map. From the main road, sometimes one has to trek up mountains or sail through rivers to reach these rural communities—a shared odyssey of both health officers and pregnant women.

The nearest provincial hospital is often 20-30 kilometers away from the main road. Barrios are lucky if a midwife comes by at least once a week.

“In the province, I think we only have three hospitals. The nearest to my town is 40 kilometers away,” Banna, Ilocos Norte Mayor Carlito Abadilla says.  “Maternal death in the eastern towns of Ilocos Norte is one of the highest with five to seven deaths a year.”

The entire region of Ilocos Norte, despite the contribution of its rich dwellers like Vigan and Paoay, has about 115 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births.

Abadilla wants his municipality to focus on maternal healthcare, noting about 130 pregnant women are currently residing in Banna.

The municipality’s goal is in line with that of GE Philippines, which recently launched a portable ultrasound machine, the VScan Access. The portable ultrasound machine has a simple touchscreen interface, allowing it to scan 20-35 patients with its more than one-hour battery capacity.

It was designed with far-flung areas in mind—lightweight, battery-operated, shock-resistant and dust-proof. It also has a built-in manual to guide local healthcare workers.

One distinct feature of the VScan Access is the device’s capability to store up to 10,000 unique patient profiles, making it easier to monitor the health of many mothers and their children.

GE segment leader Rajan Kalidindi says healthcare workers have been trained to “tag” at-risk patients and be able to closely monitor their progress and safety.

He says the machine makes it easier for midwives and local health officials to refer patients to provincial doctors once complications have been identified. The scans made by the machine can easily be sent to mobile phones using a Bluetooth capability feature. It also has a USB port allowing files to be easily transferred to computers and other devices.

The VScan Access also boasts of a multimedia feature that allows the Department of Health or local government units to produce educational materials, which could then be shown to patients during an ultrasound procedure and checkup. These videos are ideally centered on patient education and nutrition or family planning or pregnancy care, depending on what the government or institution deems essential.

In the town of Banna, midwives and nurses were trained for two days to familiarize themselves with the machine. Around 132 patients, most on their 20th week of pregnancy, underwent scanning by local healthcare workers.

According to Dr. Godofreda Dalmacion, one of the leaders of GE Healthcare’s training program, the participants were trained to identify the position of the fetus, the placenta and the orientation of the head of the baby, details which could easily determine future pregnancy complications.

Kalidindi says the volunteers’ readings improved to 80 percent when they used the ultrasound machine and underwent the training program.

Apart from knowing the health of the pregnant mothers, workers can finally “tell government to give the proper support needed by these women, because not all them planned their pregnancies. Most of them are unplanned, unwanted, untimed,” Dalmacion says.

GE Healthcare plans to extend the program to other provinces, noting this is a comprehensive local program that implements a customizable deployment system, periodic training and years of service support for the ultrasound device.

“The vision was for every barangay to have a VScan Access ultrasound system. We will be taking it one step at a time and try to get a hundred units into the localities and move on from there,” GE Healthcare Philippines country manager Ivan Arota says.

source: business.inquirer.net

Eating placentas? US moms swear by health benefits

WASHINGTON - Health trends come and go, but one post-birth fad is gaining a foothold in the United States among some new mothers who extol the benefits of eating their own placentas.

Convinced it helps to boost energy, produce healthy milk and ward off postpartum depression, the practice is catching on among mothers who shun modern medicine for natural care, or Hollywood celebrities eager to adopt new-age trends.

It is called "placentophagy," and entails eating the iron-rich afterbirth in any form: liquid, solid or packed into a pill.

The bloody, spongy organ provides the fetus with nutrients, oxygen and hormones via the umbilical cord during the 40-week gestation period.

Some midwives promote its nourishing virtues for mothers too.

"Placenta helps to restore your body with vitamins, minerals and hormones," midwife Claudia Booker told AFP.

"Not rejuvenate you so you can go to parties... just restore you when you feel like a used machine," she said, speaking over her kitchen sink in Washington where she prepares placenta pills.

For $270, Booker, a 65-year-old with cropped hair and tattooed ears, processes and prepares the vascular organ into a course of capsules lasting several weeks.

The process of turning placenta into pills is perhaps more familiar to cooks than scientists: she cleans it, presses the blood from it and steams it before placing it in a dehydrator overnight.

The dried placenta is then cut into strips and put in a coffee grinder to turn into a powder she puts inside small capsules, a technique she learned from a Chinese acupuncturist.

Placenta smoothie

There are no scientific studies on the number of new moms partaking in the practice and few on its effects, but that has not prevented the trend from taking hold in some circles, including among A-listers.

"Clueless" star Alicia Silverstone has tried it and swears by it. And "Mad Men" vixen January Jones tried it too, earning her the nickname "Mad Mom" in some American media.

The trend has even spawned cookbooks and a devoted army of recipe testers on mommy blogs who write about placenta lasagnas, tacos or chocolate truffles.

Mother of seven Catherine said wanted to try it after giving birth to her last child. She chopped her placenta into cubes and blended it with almond milk, honey and blueberries for an afterbirth smoothie.

She opted for a pureed version to "disguise the taste," she said, adding that she froze leftovers to be enjoyed later.

Placenta being a rare item, some mothers want to make sure none goes to waste.

For others, packing placenta nutrients into edible treats like chocolate truffles is preferable to taking vitamins.    

"It seemed to be a good idea because I tend to forget to take my vitamins but I don't forget that I'm in the mood for chocolate!" mother-of-three Melissa told AFP.

Emotional benefits

Booker maintains that the benefits of eating the placenta are also psychological, helping mothers to stave off postpartum depression that affects up to 19 percent of women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It is one of the pieces of the puzzle that helps you to decrease the emotional roller coaster of the early postpartum period," Booker said, the pungent scent of cooked blood wafting through her house.

It is also believed to ease fatigue and anxiety in the tumultuous post-birth period, she added.

But researchers are only starting to conduct comprehensive studies on the practice, which first emerged in the United States in the 1970s, according to Daniel Benyshek, a medical anthropologist at the University of Nevada.

Americans are believed to be among the first to eat their own afterbirth, he said, though dried placenta has been long used in Chinese medicine, prized by healers for its curative qualities.

Others have examined the effect in mammals, most of which eat afterbirth.

Psychologist Mark Kristal from the University at Buffalo found that mice experience less pain in the post-birth period if they eat their placenta.

But most studies about human benefits do not meet acceptable scientific standards, Benyshek said. Instead, most evidence is anecdotal.

"There is a lot of positive feedback from women, including women who experienced postpartum depression," he said.

Based on a survey of 189 women in 2013 conducted by Benyshek, 98 percent reported the effects of eating their own placenta as "positive."

He is planning to release a full study this summer based on research from 30 women.

'Night-and-day difference'

Scientifically proven or not, many are embracing placentophagy as an essential post-birth ritual.

"The reason that I chose to do that it is that there is a history of depression and one of the purported benefits of course is that it helps bounce my hormones," said Melissa.

Fellow mother Laura Ransom from Las Vegas, Nevada, said she wished she had tried it earlier.

She took placenta pills after the birth of her third child and said it helped her manage a hectic schedule.

"I did not do this with my first two pregnancies and I can't express the night-and-day difference of my emotional and physical recovery," she said.

"The pills gave me energy, curbed my mood swings, actually made me really happy, and helped me to handle things in the midst of adding number three to our family after a move and my husband starting a job." — AFP


source: gmanetwork.com