How can we prevent brain injuries in babies?
Our researchers from Imperial College London and other institutions in the UK and India, believe that we could help reduce the number of epilepsy cases in Indian public hospitals by improving the care given to women and their babies during childbirth. We call this a ‘care bundle’, which we aim to provide to 60,000 women and their babies in South India.
How can we prevent brain injuries in babies?
Prof. (Dame) Tina Lavender, one of the co-investigators of our study offers her international midwifery care expertise. She is also informing one of the interventions (birth companions) and looking at the acceptability of this intervention in the Indian setting.
The care bundle has four elements – birth companions, intelligent fetal heart-rate monitoring, e-partograms and brain oriented neonatal resuscitation. These elements being practical, affordable and scalable, we believe that this could be a solution that could be easily implemented in all Indian public sector hospitals.
What are the proposed interventions or carebundle?
Prof. (Dame) Tina Lavender says that the need of the hour is good routine care for individual women and also evidence based interventions when things go wrong during childbirth. This becomes especially challenging in a low income setting where resources are lacking.
How do we ensure this carebundle is sustainable in lower income countries?
Prof (Sir) Arul Kumaran Sabaratnam heads the Scientific Steering Committee of the PREVENT Study. He is also involved in one of the four care bundles - foetal heart surveillance.