PSI’s dedicated post-partum intrauterine device (PPIUD) inserter, developed by the organization’s Global Medical Director, Dr. Paul Blumenthal, is a finalist for funding from ‘Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development’. Of the more than 400 applications – only 53 were selected as finalists. PSI’s Global Clinical Advisor, Dr. Jyoti Vajpayee of India, will be in Washington DC from July 29-31 to defend the idea in front of expert panels.
Saving Lives at Birth also presents an honorary People’s Choice Award chosen through an online voting contest. Review the 53 finalists’ innovations from Round 3, and vote for PSI before July 31st 11:00am EST. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be announced on July 31st.
About 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 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. PSI’s proposed 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.
