Simple and low cost device to measure immediate postpartum blood loss for early recognition of PPH and referral in a low cost setting

Immediate postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is responsible for most maternal deaths in resource poor  countries. Rapid blood loss in a short span of time is not always reflected physiologically and  not easy to assess clinically. When signs and symptoms of PPH become obvious, by that time the mother already went into shock. In most clinical practice  postpartum blood loss is assessed subjectively and is often inaccurate. The other methods tried are neither practical nor affordable in community settings. 

Dr Abdul Quaiyum, a researcher at icddr,b, developed a simple blood measuring mat, made of biodegradable materials to measure immediate postpartum blood loss.  icddr,b has piloted this specially designed pre-weighted mat among women delivered vaginally. Immediately after the delivery of the baby, the mat was placed under the buttock of the mother and kept for two hours or until the mother left the place of delivery. Soaking status was assessed visually and then the soaked mat was weighed with a digital postal scale to measure  the amount of blood the mat  has soaked. In addition, the physiological indicators of each woman was  monitored to see the correlation between blood loss and changing health status. A fully soaked mat can retain 442±32 ml of blood.

It is expected that mat can easily be used by birth attendants and women and thus could helps in early recognition of PPH and initiate care seeking simply by visual assessment of soaking status , and hence reduce the incidence of severe PPH and related morbidity and mortality.