According to NASA, its research on inflated antigravity suit or ‘miracle suit’ is helping save mothers around the world by preventing bleeding during or after labour.
As per global data, at least 70,000 pregnant mothers die each year from obstetric hemorrhage—mostly in third world countries, where effective medications, blood transfusions and surgery can be delayed by hours or days.
Previously, researchers at the NASA Ames Research Centre proposed applying pressure to a woman’s entire lower body using an inflated antigravity suit (or G-suit). The suit has air-filled bladders which prevents blood from pooling in the legs.
NASA for a long time now has depended on G suits to keep test pilots from blacking out during extreme acceleration. Astronauts use them during re-entry into the planet’s atmosphere to squeeze the arms and legs and push blood back towards the head as their bodies should come in terms with the pull of planetary gravity.
Recent researches have given a better understanding of the physiology of G-suits. They claim that even lower pressures could be employed to decrease bleeding and redirect blood back to the heart and brain of patients.
Since the pressure did not have to be as strong as in military and aviation cases, the company scrapped the old-style G-suits for a non-pneumatic version using simple elastic compression.
In a 2004 study at the Ames research center, the garments saved 13 out of 14 patients in Pakistan who were in shock from extreme blood loss—NASA said in a statement.
