A pioneering MIT researcher is tackling the huge problem of infant deaths with a simple device he put together on the night he learned that nearly 2 million children die on the day they are born.
"I had a few sensors literally lying in the trash in my lab, so we built it and it works," said Kevin Cedrone, whose Augmented Infant Resuscitator might just become the next international lifesaver. "When you want to save a life, you really don't want to have to wait until a baby dies to find out you're doing it wrong."
The so-called AIR — designed to attach to existing infant ventilation equipment — relies on tiny sensors to measure the rate and pressure of air entering a newborn's lungs.
This way, doctors and nurses can immediately tell if they need to speed up or slow down the air flow, or just readjust the ventilation mask covering the baby's nose and mouth.
After putting together the makeshift model, Cedrone met with a team of doctors and engineers to tweak it. The team includes Santorino Data, a pediatrician who specializes in neonatal resuscitation; Craig Mielcarz, an electrical engineer who has produced low-cost, battery-operated medical devices; and Dr. Kristian Olson of Massachusetts General Hospital's Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies.
They're seeking a patent for their product, and hope to sell it someday for as little as $3 each.
Meanwhile, AIR has won top prizes in a variety of competitions, including MIT's IDEAS Global Challenge, Dow's Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge program, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Saving Lives at Birth partnership.
"It has great potential to change something that has a huge impact on the quality of life of infants all around the world," said Kate Mytty, who used to run the MIT IDEAS challenge. "People are trained on infant resuscitators all over the world, but they're still not working well. This makes it possible to understand why these resuscitators aren't working."
Money from those awards will pay to create more models and conduct a clinical trial in Uganda, Cedrone said.
As for Cedrone, who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering last year, there's no telling what's next.
"I don't know what the future holds," he said. "Less than a year ago, everything I was doing was aimed at energy. This just kind of came across my radar."
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