An 80-cent plastic pouch is cutting maternal deaths by two-thirds

A plastic pouch that costs about 80 cents is cutting maternal deaths across Africa, according to the New York Times. The maternal drape hangs beneath a woman after childbirth and measures blood loss by volume, letting health workers spot postpartum hemorrhage before it turns deadly. Paired with standard treatments, the method reduced deaths from such bleeding by roughly two-thirds. "The drape is not an A.I. thing, it's the absolute opposite," said Dr. Hadiza Galadanci, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria. "It's a simple, simple intervention that can solve our problems." The appeal is partly that it asks almost nothing of a busy ward: no wiring, no screen, no training beyond reading a number. A health worker glances at the bag and knows. The lives it saves come not from a breakthrough machine, but from finally measuring something people had long tried to guess.