Breath of Life

MTTS is a main partner of Breath of Life, an East Meets West Foundation program that directly addresses infant mortality in Southeast Asia through low-cost, innovative clinical solutions.

East Meets West's Breath of Life program provides custom-designed, low-cost equipment to hospitals, and provides targeted training to medical personnel, to save the lives of infants suffering from common newborn pathologies. To ensure sustainability, BOL works to strengthen linkages with local health authorities to involve them in integrating these technologies into the larger health system.

BOL's equipment is designed and manufactured by EMW's partner in Vietnam, MTTS (Medical Technology Transfer Services). MTTS has designed a complete package of appropriate technologies for newborn intensive care units, of which the main device is a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machine. CPAP treats respiratory distress, pneumonia, asphyxia and other common respiratory pathologies.  A standard technology in the developed world, CPAP scarcely existed in Vietnam when EMW piloted it at the National Hospital of Pediatrics (NHP) in Hanoi in 2003.  A year later, 24-hour infant mortality rates had dropped from 30% to 10% at the NHP as a result of the intervention. As of 2009, BOL had equipped over 95% of Vietnam’s provinces with CPAP machines.

In addition to the CPAP, Breath of Life and MTTS have available an array of complementary equipment that, taken together, creates sustainable, adequate, well-functioning intensive care units for the developing world. Additional equipment includes an LED phototherapy machine to treat neonatal jaundice, an infant resuscitation station, a portable “bilibed” that provides both phototherapy treatment and heat, and small, yet critical devices, such as hand sanitizers and pulse oximeters. Find out more about the equipment provided by BOL.

When EMW provides a hospital in the developing world with the full range of Breath of Life equipment, this complex of innovative technologies constitutes a cost-effective, durable, low-maintenance NICU, or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to effectively treat premature infants and other newborns with life-threatening health conditions.

In Vietnam, BOL’s simple, clinical interventions have already saved thousands of infants’ lives. Read more about the concrete solutions provided by Breath of Life program.

The program is now serving as an adaptable model for neonatal health programs in 8 contries: Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam.