A dedicated post-partum intrauterine device (PPIUD) inserter developed by PSI in collaboration with SPIRES at Stanford University is one of 22 award nominees for the ‘Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development’. The Round 3 winning nominees were selected from more than 400 applications of innovative ideas to save the lives of mothers and newborns in developing countries.
The dedicated PPIUD inserter was developed by PSI’s Global Medical Director and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford, Dr. Paul Blumenthal. PSI’s Global Clinical Advisor, Dr. Jyoti Vajpayee of India, was in Washington DC from July 29-31 to defend the idea in front of expert panels.
PSI’s PPIUD inserter:
Post-partum IUDs allow a woman to space her next pregnancy, but are a tremendously underutilized approach to family planning. They provide “one-stop shopping” for a new mother: After she delivers her baby at the hospital, this long-acting birth control method can be inserted on the same visit. Rather than depending on the woman to return to receive the IUD at a later date – an impediment for many from resource-poor communities – PPIUD takes advantage of the woman and provider already being in the hospital where the procedure can be quickly performed. Pilot research in Uganda has even suggested that women who might normally deliver at home will view the PPIUD as an incentive to have an institutional delivery.
Nevertheless, PPIUDs have not achieved the popularity that they should. Why? Because there has not been a simple, standard way of inserting the IUD postpartum. The conventional interval IUD inserter will not work for these women, so providers are forced to use workaround methods that can be difficult to do correctly, painful for the woman, and increase the opportunity for contamination and infection.
PSI, in collaboration with the Stanford Program for International Education and Services (SPIRES), has created a simple, intuitive inserter designed specifically for PPIUDs. It eliminates the need for specialized instruments like forceps and allows for a standardized, easy-to-learn technique that mimics interval insertion. Providers are more apt to educate a woman about the PPIUD when they feel comfortable providing it. And – perhaps most importantly – it is ready to use now. The PPIUD inserter project can be immediately scaled up to provide long-term family planning easily, cheaply and safely to the women who need it most.
Saving Lives at Birth partnership:
Launched in 2011, the partnership includes the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada (funded by the Government of Canada), and the U.K’s Department for International Development (DFID). The partnership calls for innovative, scalable solutions to prevent the 150,000 maternal and 1.6 million newborn deaths and 1.2 million stillbirths that take place during childbirth annually. Saving Lives at Birth has funded 39 innovations since the challenge began in 2011.
