Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) Training Device
According to the CDC, 11% of all pregnancy related deaths in the United States result from PPH. In low resource areas, maternal deaths from PPH can be as high as 30%, as doctors do not have access to training resources to recognize early signs of PPH. The earlier a physician can diagnose PPH, the more that can be done to treat it and a drastically reduce fatality rates. My university team was tasked with creating a training device for doctors in low resource areas to diagnose PPH.
Our solution can successfully simulate a real world diagnosis for a physician but is only 0.7% of existing simulation training device cost. The teams model was successfully tested by OBGYNs in both North Carolina and Kenya. Additionally, our device was a semifinalist in the RICE Global Health Technologies Undergraduate Competition and a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) award winner. My team and I are currently working to publishing this work in a medical journal.
My role was to build the initial prototypes and conduct materials testing on specific components of the design to recreate an accurate representation of the human body. See attached handbook to see more on the prototyping process and an instruction handbook for recreating the device.
