A car mechanic in Argentina had an "aha" moment after he watched a YouTube video of a cork being pulled out of an empty glass bottle with just the use of a simple plastic bag. After going to bed and thinking about the trick he had just seen, he woke up with an idea that has the potential to revolutionize the way women given birth.
Jorge Odón, 59, created the Odón Device which is currently in a test phase which is meant to help women during obstructed labor. This happens when a baby's head is too large to fit through the birth canal or when a mother's contractions stop mid-labor.
The device works by slipping a plastic bag around the infant's head, inflating the bag, and then pulling until the baby emerges from the birth canal.
The product is already endorsed by the World Health Organization and United States Agency for International Development and licensed by a medical technology company with hopes of profiting. The Odón device has been tested on 30 women who were in normal labor at hospitals. The WHO will oversee tests on hundreds more women in China, India, and South Africa during normal and obstructed labor conditions.
"This is very exciting," Dr. Mario Merialdi, the WHO's chief coordinator for improving maternal and perinatal health, told the New York Times. "This critical moment of life is one in which there's been very little advancement for years."
About 10 percent of the 137 million births worldwide each year have potentially serious complications, Dr. Merialdi said. About 5.6 million babies are stillborn or die quickly, and about 260,000 women die in childbirth.
Watch below the video that inspired the invention:
Watch a prototype of the Odón device below:
