One By One is embarking on our first-ever research project to learn whether ultrasound technology can be used to identify women who are at high risk of having obstructed labor leading to fistula. The availability of an effective, portable, low-cost screening tool would be tremendously important to prevention efforts. If a woman knows that she is likely to face a difficult labor, she would be able to make arrangements to deliver in a facility capable of providing the care she may need in order to have a healthy outcome for herself and her baby.

Obstructed labor, the cause of fistula, is caused by a condition called cephalo-pelvic disproportion. This means that the mother’s pelvis is not large enough to allow the baby to pass through. Is it possible to identify women who are at high risk of experiencing this delivery complication by using ultrasound during pregnancy to measure pelvic size? Can pelvic size be accurately measured with a ruggedized, hand-held ultrasound machine suitable for use in remote areas? The research that One By One is funding will provide answers to both of these important questions.

The study will be conducted at Bugando Medical Center (BMC) in Tanzania by a team of researchers from BMC and from the Center for Social and Emergency Medicine in Oakland, CA.. The study will be launched in November 2009 and is expected to take approximately nine months to complete.

We are looking forward to this exciting collaboration that we are hoping will yield valuable information about a potential addition to critically important fistula prevention efforts.