Ugandan medics deploy AI to stop women dying after childbirth

NAIROBI, Jan 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Ugandan doctors are giving new mothers artificial intelligence-enabled devices to remotely monitor their health in a first-of-its-kind study aiming to curb thousands of preventable maternal deaths across Africa, medics and developers said. Doctors at Mbarara Hospital in western Uganda will give devices to more than 1,000 women who have undergone caesarean section births to wear on their upper arms at all times. Algorithms detect at-risk cases and alert doctors. Joseph Ngonzi from Mbarara University of Science and Technology, which is conducting the study, said it would help "improve monitoring in a resource-constrained environment". The World Health Organization says almost 300,000 women worldwide die annually from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth - that's more than 800 women every day.