The Safer Births project proposal for funding from the Norwegian Research Council through the Globvac fund, was submitted on the 13th of February 2012.
The proposal seeks funding for developing four new innovative products as well as extensive and groundbreaking medical and implementation research.
Laerdal Global Health has in recent years experienced large success in developing low-cost easy to use training and treatment tools for low-resource settings. “Globvac cooperation in our Safer Births project could help realize our goal to develop 10-15 disruptive innovation for low resources settings faster and better” Says Tore Lærdal, Managing Director in Laerdal Global Health.
Laerdal Global Health seeks to help train and equip 1 million health workers to save 250 000 newborn lives. Working through international alliances, and integrating the products in training programs, has taken Laerdal products to more than 50 countries already. The WHO and others have identified the several products as important innovations for global health.
Principal Investigator and Project Manager of the Safer Births project Dr. Hege Ersdal has high ambitions for the project: “The research planned in this project will not only help to develop devices and training tools more suited for a low-resource setting. A great part of the research is groundbreaking medical research, that has never been done before and that has the potential to change and consolidate international guidelines on resuscitation of newborn world wide”
“More importantly, this project has a great potential to save newborn lives” adds Dr. Ersdal.
The Safer Births innovations builds on the success of the “Helping Babies Breathe” program in Tanzania, which shows that immediate simple actions at birth can save about 50% of newborn deaths. Innovations in fetal monitoring, process of labor, and improved quality of face mask ventilation should have the potential to further reduce mortality by almost 50%.