Mission Possible: Answering the Biggest Questions in Prenatal Health.
Announcing $2.3M in grant funding to bring long overdue innovation to prenatal care.
“Is my baby ok?”, “Am I going into labor?” — These questions are not only top of mind for every expecting mother but are also critical questions for the teams providing care to women at risk for preterm birth or other pregnancy complications.
Last week we proudly announced two prestigious grants that will move us towards our goal of finally answering these critical questions. The grants will enable us to further develop our groundbreaking pregnancy wearable for remote fetal monitoring and labor detection (both preterm and term). The projects received a total of $2.3M in funding from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union under the SME instrument, and Belgian based Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship funding agency (Agentschap Innovatie & Ondernemen).
Both grants will enable the commercialization of novel medical products for prenatal care and, in turn, improved birth outcomes and lower healthcare costs. We intend to publish early results of our clinical studies in 2019.
“Given the highly competitive review process, this as a major endorsement by key opinion leaders in Europe for both our technology and vision to bring prenatal care into the 21st century. We look forward to realizing this vision and placing these innovations into the hands of moms and doctors to ensure every baby gets a healthy start.” — Bloomlife Co-founder and CEO, Eric Dy
Preterm birth is the #1 cause of death in children under five, globally. High-risk pregnancies are on the rise due to advanced maternal age, chronic disease, and unhealthy lifestyles leading to increasing rates of adverse birth outcomes. Complications during pregnancy cost healthcare systems billions of dollars and often leave women and children with a lifetime of disability or chronic disease. Preterm birth is one such complication and a global epidemic affecting more than 15 million babies worldwide annually.
Each grant supports our mission to bring long overdue innovation to prenatal care. The Horizon 2020 project (grant agreement n° 778503) is focused on the development and clinical validation of Bloomlife’s labor detection algorithms. We will run a multi-site clinical study over the next two years to longitudinally collect data on expectant moms throughout their 3rd trimester. The goal is detecting labor onset remotely, a diagnosis that today requires a visit to the doctor for a clinical examination.
“The biological triggers of labor onset are still unknown, and identification of the early stages of labor are often difficult to interpret. For low-risk risk moms at term (>37 weeks gestation) this uncertainty leads to unnecessary, inconvenient trips to the hospital. However, for moms at high risk to deliver preterm (<37 weeks) this uncertainty can cause a significant increase in morbidity and even mortality for her baby. Getting proper medical care to detect preterm labor and delay delivery is critical especially for moms less than 32 weeks. This project will develop and validate a novel tool for remote labor detection to ensure each mom gets the care she needs when she needs it.” — Dr. Frederic Chantraine, MD Ph.D., and Principal Investigator at CHR Citadelle in Liege (Belgium).
The Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship grant is focused on expanding the development of our wearable to monitor fetal health for early signs of distress non-invasively and remotely. In partnership with Belgian based R&D institute, imec, we are designing an ultra-low power low noise ASIC dedicated to tracking fetal ECG and fetal movement.
“Fetal movement and fetal heart rate are the two indicators of fetal health today. Unfortunately, fetal heart rate is limited to hospital settings, and there is no tool to objectively and accurately monitor fetal movement. We are excited to be part of the research to quantify fetal movements and fetal heart rate in ambulatory settings. The clinical relevance, for instance, is in pregnancies with growth retarded fetuses (+/- 5%) where we do not have any decent day-by-day monitoring today, is unquestionable” — Dr. Wilfried Gyselaers, MD, and Principal Investigator at Ziekenhuis Oost Limburg in Genk (Belgium)
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