SMHS Researcher Receives K23 Grant to Investigate Postpartum Hemorrhage

With the aid of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) career development grant, Homa Ahmadzia, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is working to minimize the risk of postpartum hemorrhage, or heavy bleeding after birth. 

According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, postpartum hemorrhage accounts for about 10% of maternal mortalities, a decline from previous years. Ahmadzia is seeking to help make that number decline further.

Over the course of Ahmadzia’s study, she and her team will administer three different doses of tranexamic acid (TXA), a preventative drug used to help reduce bleeding during various dental and surgical procedures, to scheduled C-section mothers in low, medium, and high doses in order to identify and optimize the safest, lowest dose to prevent severe bleeding.

“Reducing postpartum hemorrhage is something that I certainly care about,” said Ahmadzia. “On a patient level we want to optimize the dose of TXA. I think that’s important because it can help reduce the bleeding at delivery.”

The project is made possible from a more than $600,000 NIH K23 grant, which is designed to support the career development of individuals with a clinical doctoral degree, who have the potential to develop into productive, clinical investigators, and who have made a commitment to focus their research endeavors on patient-oriented research

The study serves as a stepping stone to not only direct patient benefit, but also expanding on other clinical studies, Ahmadzia said. 

Down the road, she hopes to develop a multisite clinical study taking advantage of the high patient volume and diverse demographics seen at hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area.