Hadiza Galadanci
A SIMPLE AID FOR MATERNAL MORTALITY
In 2020, for every 100,000 Nigerian women who gave birth, about 1,000 did not survive, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hadiza Galadanci, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Nigeria’s Bayero University, knows that problem all too well, and decided she would be the one to solve it. Over the past few years, Galadanci, who is also the director of the Africa Center of Excellence for Population Health and Policy, has worked with a network of collaborators in other countries to implement and study a simple yet effective system for preventing fatal postpartum hemorrhages, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.
‘I get to facilities where [they’re using this system] and they’re telling me they haven’t seen any women dying of [postpartum hemorrhage] since they started.’ —Hadiza Galadanci
First, doctors place a blood-collection drape under a birthing mother, so they can track exactly how much blood she has lost during delivery. (Often, it’s difficult for doctors to assess how much blood the mother has lost.) If the blood pooled in the drape passes a certain level, physicians provide a “bundle” of
