Project Lead(s): Zubaida Bai
With funding from Grand Challenges Canada, ayzh aims to touch the lives of millions of mothers and newborns over three years by providing portable and affordable clean home birth kits.
ayzh’s “janma Clean Birth Kit” contains all the essential tools required to ensure safe and sterile conditions during a home birth, as recommended by the World Health Organization. The $2 kit includes a cord clamp, scalpel blade, sterile surface, and sterilizing hand wipes – all contained in a biodegradable jute purse.
The funding will help ayzh, which has already touched the lives of 500,000 individuals by selling over 250,000 kits, to reach its goal of providing 600,000 people with kits across India. The renewed funding will help expand distribution networks, increase production, and develop new kits for newborns and new moms.
Led by SDG Pioneer Zubaida Bai, ayzh is dedicated to improving maternal health and reducing infant mortality, while also supporting the livelihoods of women across India.
With the push to have mothers deliver in facilities, care providers are struggling to keep up with the demand for their services, often resulting in unsanitary birth environments. ayzh’s portable and affordable kits aim to buttress a struggling supply chain and help reduce maternal and newborn mortality.
Through this investment by Grand Challenges Canada and partners, ayzh will also expand its “kit-style” product line to other areas of maternal, newborn and child health. Several new products are already in development, including an essential newborn care kit, a post-partum hemorrhage kit, and a menstrual hygiene kit.