In Nairobi, you are supposed to be buried where your placenta is buried. People deliver at home because they don’t want the placenta to be left at the hospital.
Moses Obimbo Madadi, MD, PhD
PTBi Fellow
The centerpiece of our May Collaboratory was understanding placental research in various cultural contexts, and why it is so crucial to engage communities in placental infection research. Titled Placental Infection and Prematurity: Community Engagement Across the Globe, the event was facilitated by PTBi Fellow, Dr. Moses Obimbo Madadi, MD, Ph.D. As the first speaker, Madadi provided an overview of his research work over the past two years in East Africa. Along with covering premature placental gross pathology, light microscopy, cytokine analysis, immunofluorescence, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy in HIV infected women on antiretrovirals, Madadi explained that in East Africa the placenta is a sacred object. He explained, in Nairobi, “you are supposed to be buried where your placenta is buried. People deliver at home because they don’t want the placenta to be left at the hospital.” Because of the stigma surrounding hospital births, it is crucial for his research to engage research participants in order to gain trust.
The second speakers were Jessica Amezcua and Sachi Patel, clinical research coordinators at UC San Francisco. The two women guided the audience through their experience coordinating placental sample collection with patients at UCSF, further emphasizing the need to build a trusting relationship with research participants. Patel explained that the most common reasons people did not want to participate in their study was to avoid sharing their medical records. The two explained that patients rarely refused to participate because they wanted to take their placenta home.
The final speaker was Professor David Aronoff MD, FIDSA, FAAM, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the founding Director of the Vanderbilt Pre3 Initiative (Preventing adverse Pregnancy Outcomes and Prematurity). Dr. Aronoff spoke about his work applying technology to the problem of Group B streptococcus Chorioamnionitis, which causes 3.5 million preterm births per year.
