The HAEM (Haemorrhage and Antifibrinolytics in Emergency Medicine – WOMAN TRIAL)

A cheap drug already proven to save bleeding accident victims is now being tested on women haemorrhaging after childbirth. Sudden severe bleeding is a major cause of death and disability worldwide, and postpartum haemorrhage is a leading killer of new mothers. The drug, tranexamic acid, has been used safely for decades in surgery to control bleeding, but its potential to treat a much wider range of bleeding emergencies has only recently become clear. The research team, who led the landmark trial in trauma patients, will now run a large international trial to see whether the same drug cuts deaths and improves recovery in women bleeding after giving birth. If it works, the impact would be immediate and global: tranexamic acid is cheap, stable, and already widely available, meaning it could be deployed in low-resource maternity wards and emergency rooms around the world with minimal training or infrastructure. This is not fundamental science—it is a direct test of a low-cost intervention against a common, lethal problem, with results that could change standard care for millions of women.