How innovation is helping mothers and babies in Kenya

Mothers and babies are dying unnecessarily in Kenya. Maternal and neonatal mortality rates in Kenya are far too high. According to Unicef, the current maternal mortality rate is at around 342 mothers dying per 100,000 live births. To put that into context, the rate in Ireland is approximately 5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. 

The current neonatal mortality rate in Kenya is 19.6 babies per 1,000 live births. That means more than 19 babies out of every 1,000 born in Kenya do not survive. In Ireland, that figure is approximately 2.2 per 1,000 live births.

One of the major challenges in trying to improve outcomes for mothers and babies in Kenya is the acute shortage of necessary essential health equipment in hospitals and health facilities around the country. Equipment is not only expensive to purchase, it is also difficult to replace when it breaks. One of the common causes of equipment breakdown is overuse. And because spare parts are not available locally, they take too much time to procure, if they are available at all. 

We simply cannot save the lives of mothers and babies if we don’t have the equipment we need to do so.

In order to tackle this critical shortage of equipment in Kenya we partnered with Kenyatta International Hospital and the University of Nairobi to launch the ‘Maker Movement for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health’ project in 2014. The project has the objective of developing low cost but highly effective medical devices, using local resources.

The University operates a FabLab (fabrication laboratory) which is one of about two hundred around the world. FabLabs, alternatively known as ‘Maker Spaces’ were conceived to provide an environment where skills, advanced materials and technologies could all be combined to make things quickly and cheaply anywhere in the world using digital design, 3D printers, laser cutting and other advanced technological means.

It’s within this ‘Maker Space’ that university students and project interns across a range of disciplines can work with doctors, nurses and other medical professionals from the hospital to find innovative design solutions to their medical equipment challenges.

Initially project participants narrowed down nine devices considered to be the most urgent, and of those, prioritised and designed three. But with the project now near completion of its second phase, approximately ten designs have been developed to the point of becoming a viable prototype, and of those, five have so far been brought to the point of certification and are now ready for market.

Close to 150 students have come through the space in one way or another, often to contribute to hackathons or work on small projects. But at any one time, there are approximately 10 interns working full-time under the project.

Here we meet the makers and some of their designs.

Agnes Waita is a project engineer at the Maker Space. She explains the importance of the birthing cushion in encouraging mothers who are used to more traditional birthing methods to give birth in hospitals.

Steve Osumba is a Project Engineer at Maker Space. He explains the importance of their suction machine design.

Elvis Ogweno is a biomedical engineer at the Maker Space. He explains why he and the team have chosen to develop their own incubators.

Kista Mbula is project communications officer as well as being an innovator at the Maker Space.  She explains the necessity for developing their own phototherapy unit.

The Maker Movement’s success since its 2014 launch has led to a number of new partnerships. Key amongst them is with the Philips foundation as it links the project to manufacturer who has the capacity to produce the equipment and make it available for local purchase.

In addition, the Maker Space has formed its own start-up which can produce the devices once they have received certification. Dr Richard Ayah is the Director of the Science and Technology Park within the University. He explains one of the key challenges they will face in terms of production.

One of the many positive outcomes of this project is that the spirit of innovation that it is fostering will continue long beyond its eventual conclusion.

“The happy thing is that the students and interns who have come through this are now very marketable. So, I don't want to say we're losing them, but the world is gaining them, because of the training that they have undergone here”, says Dr Ayah.

Former interns have already gone on to create their own companies as a direct result of everything they learned under this project. And it’s only just the beginning.

Dr Ayah points out that new opportunities are constantly arising as a result of Concern’s approach to innovating within the project.

“Innovation by its very nature, obviously we should expect to fail. But a lot of donors or companies would expect you to succeed and not to fail… this is something that Concern has really supported us on.”

Creating the space to fail, learn and start again is key to successful innovating. Providing a space where this can happen has already been very beneficial for this Maker Space.

Maternal and neonatal mortality rates in Kenya will not transform overnight. But the more bright minds who are focused on solving the big issues, and the more support they have behind them, the more hope there is for better health outcomes for mothers and children around the country.

Innovation is central to all of our programmes. We are constantly searching for more effective and sustainable solutions to the problems faced by the communities we work with. You can support our innovation around the globe by donating today.