PregRX: Paper based Pregnancy test

The current process of home pregnancy testing is very cumbersome and wasteful. A lady is expected to sit, pee, and capture urine in a bottle/tumbler, before using a dropper and putting a few drops onto a plastic testing cassette. The current process leads to plastic over use, for every pregnancy test involves plastic in some form or the other. The use of so many elements also makes home pregnancy testing uneconomical, while impacting the accuracy of the results. Most women also find the current process extremely nauseating. 

India's First Design Patent Protected Female Urination Device for women, and the Sirona range of Unique Intimate & Menstrual Hygiene Products, has launched yet another breakthrough innovation, this time in the home pregnancy testing space. Called PeeBuddy PregRX, the product will be one-of-a-kind unique funnel with strategically-integrated HcG test strip.

Adopting paper based pregnancy test will reduce the bio-medical waste globally.

To impact the lives of millions of women in India and abroad, Sirona is an award-winning intimate & menstrual hygiene product brand providing solutions to ‘ignored & unaddressed’ feminine hygiene woes and wellness-related problems. All the pregnancy test kits are made up of plastics or require a plastic bottle to collect the urine. It causes bio-medical waste and almost millions of women face this issue.

We conducted a survey with 482 participants and 100% women agreed that they'd choose this product. It does not need to collect the urine, it just passes through it and the result can be obtained as single line or double line.

Our target population is all women from all economic background. We want our product to be available in lower price so that many women can get the access of it. Not only does it eliminate the need for any plastic bottle/tumbler/dropper, but also makes for an easy-to-use and eco-friendly home testing process for pregnancy. 

Whenever a woman wants to use the pregnancy test kit, there are a lot of hassle in terms of collecting the urine. These issues remain unanswered hence, we came up with an idea to have a PregRx which does not require collecting of urine.

Pregnancy test kits have been used by women globally. Since, we are the first one to bring paper based testing kits, we do not have any competitors. 

Our product is easy to use and accurate. Since, the product is bio-degredable and eco-friendly, it reduces bio medical waste.

This innovation will definitely work in a global level. This is the reason we are approaching for the funds so that further research to cut down the price and also to scale up the project and make it available world wide. 

For underprivileged section, buying a pregnancy kit is not possible as it is relatively expensive. Our aim is to make it available world wide.

Females always had this problem of collecting urine with the help of plastic container, in fact the kit is made up of the plastic material. We have become used to adjusting ourselves and never think about anything that does not require collecting of urine. 

Sirona brought this innovation that there is no need of collecting the urine. It will be just one process of urinating through the device and check the result of pregnancy.

Project AAAN is a CSR initiative of a start-up based in Delhi, Sirona . As the name suggests, Project AAAN aims to provide an accessible, economical, safe and environmentally sustainable way for CSWs (Commercial Sex Workers) to manage menstruation with dignity. Hygienic living and sanitation on the whole is largely uncovered in the dimly lit and cramped spaces of GB Road, more popular as the red-light district of Delhi. Sirona wanted to strongly address the space of hygienic living, particularly menstruation including disposal, amongst these CSWs. By educating and enabling them to practice safe menstrual and pregnancy hygiene practices in form of menstrual cups. Sirona is also helping them save a part of their income by moving away from sanitary pads / cloth / rags / foam / cotton which they are presently using. Besides procurement and hygiene, disposal of these sanitary products is another challenge as they are filling up our landfills. Our long-term objective is to make GB road completely ‘Pad Free’ by 2025 thereby saving these CSWs from infections, financial strain and at the same time take the load off our landfills. Conducting such activities as to support our campaigns, does not require any digital identification. However, we keep a record of their Identity Proof while taking the survey. 

Sirona believes in training about the products. We have been reaching out to the communities and working on grassroot level to spread the awareness about menstrual hygiene as well the products like PregRx, Menstrual Cups and Pee Buddy. 

All our products are user friendly. Even in the rural communities where women are illiterate. Even they are happy using our products.

We are planning to do similar campaign for PregRx what we did with our Menstrual Cup campaigns. The impact has been noteworthy. 

A brainchild of Sirona India, Project AAAN was implemented along with a local NGO partner, Katkatha. With help of Katkatha, the team visited brothels regularly to distribute and educate women on the use and advantages of menstrual cups. Starting October 2018, Project AAAN has come a long way and with the consistent efforts of the field team there has been a significant impact on the uptake of menstrual cups as an alternative. Most women are now eager to use Sirona cups as they not only want to save money spent on buying pads but also the effort of purchasing them every month. The project has had a broader, three-pronged impact on the lives of the CSWs:

•   Health & Hygiene : Educating on use of menstrual cups also contributes for the women to know their bodies better in terms of the biological functioning. Conversion to cups is also saving them from the rashes and itchiness caused by sanitary pads and infection by use of cloth/foam etc

•   Financial : As of now, they are either buying low cost pads (each cycle costs Rs. 60- Rs.100/-) or using rags/cloth/foam/cotton. They are bearing a significant financial cost (spends on pads ranges from Rs. 30,000 to Rs.100,000 spread over 35 active menstrual years). On shifting from other products to menstrual cups, their savings over a period of time are significant.

•   Environmental : India’s waste disposal infrastructure is already overloaded and shifting to menstrual cups by the CSWs will drastically reduce their carbon footprint and decrease the load of non-biodegradable napkins. Talking of exact figures, each woman contributes around 150kgs of menstrual waste in her lifetime, so if we are able to move all 4500 women off pads it means 150kgs x 4500 = 6,75,000 Kgs off our landfills. 

Learning from our project on GB Road, promoting cups as an alternative will ensure that marginalized populations have greater and long-term access to bio-degradable sanitary material. Sirona is also planning to do awareness campaign for PregRx.

After Delhi, Sirona now plans to reach out to CSWs in other cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Besides

CSWs, targeting other deprived sections like women with disabilities, women in jail and queer people is also on the agenda. Long term product access to women in rural areas will also be a major focal point while expanding the scope of this project.

Full Time: 45

Part Time: 10

Contractors: 8

We always believe working as a team. We do have departments and divisions of work but se all collaborate for the weekly meetings and understand each other's development.

We try to reach out to people and understand what difficulty are they facing. We want to work on their practical problems that have been left unanswered. So our team members come with different skill sets and we work as a team. We appreciate good developments everyday and learn from each other.

Stanford SEED

Indian Angel Network

https://www.thesirona.com/about

We get funds through Sustained Donations and Grants. To scale up this product, we really need grant to make this product easily accessible to all.

We have not raised any funds as of now in Sirona Hygiene Foundation. However we had raised funds USD 7000 at Sirona Hygiene Pvt Ltd. The money was used to distribute  Menstrual Cups and biodegradable sanitary napkins etc.

We wish to raise atleast USD 70000.

Estimates expenses of USD 65000 to distribute 40000 cups in 8 months.