The cheap plastic drape saving mothers’ lives in Nigeria

An 80-cent piece of equipment is helping to reduce maternal mortality in one of the world’s most dangerous places to give birth. An 80 cent “maternal drape” is saving women’s lives in Kano, Nigeria — the country where more women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world. The drape measures blood loss during childbirth; once the level passes 300ml, midwives use massage, oxytocin, tranexamic acid, and IV fluids to encourage the uterus to contract. Hadiza Galadanci, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at Bayero University, was initially skeptical that anything could reduce the mortality rate from postpartum hemorrhage — experienced by 10% of women who give birth and the biggest risk to new mothers — when she was approached by researchers. But the drastic reduction in deaths since the drape’s implementation spurred her to persuade Nigeria’s health minister to introduce it as a national standard of care. Suppliers in Kano now produce them for Nigeria and neighboring countries.