Uterine Suction Tamponade · Postpartum Hemorrhage Care

Portable suction that helps stop the bleeding — fast, affordable, everywhere.

VATARA is a low-cost, battery-powered suction device built for uterine suction tamponade (UST), bringing a life-saving intervention for postpartum hemorrhage to hospitals and birth settings that don't have wall suction on hand.

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#1 cause of maternal death worldwide is postpartum hemorrhage
–250 mmHg regulated suction, no wall line required
4+ years field-tested across hospital settings worldwide

The Problem

Postpartum hemorrhage doesn't wait for the right equipment.

PPH is the leading cause of maternal death

Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide. Uterine suction tamponade (UST) is an emerging, effective treatment: a soft device is placed in the uterus and connected to suction, applying gentle negative pressure that helps the uterus collapse and contract — compressing bleeding vessels from the inside.

Standard suction depends on fixed infrastructure

UST is typically delivered through hospital wall suction. That works well in a fully-equipped OR — but it leaves care teams without options in labor & delivery rooms, ambulances, rural facilities, and disaster or conflict settings where wall suction isn't available or reliable.

The Product

VATARA: portable suction, purpose-built for UST.

A battery-powered pump paired with a single-use consumables kit, designed to make suction tamponade possible anywhere a patient needs it — not just where a wall port happens to be.

The VATARA suction pump, a compact black battery-powered device with pressure and mode controls and a digital display, labeled SONA Global.

  • Battery-powered vacuum pump

    Delivers regulated negative pressure up to −250 mmHg, adjustable to accommodate dressing or seal leaks — no dependence on hospital wall suction.

  • UST consumables kit

    Single-use, sterile components sized for suction tamponade, compatible with commonly available intrauterine balloon and drainage supplies.

  • Built for low-resource and mobile settings

    Compact and rechargeable, designed to travel with the care team — labor & delivery units, ambulances, rural clinics, and disaster response.

  • Field-proven design lineage

    VATARA's pump platform has already been deployed for negative pressure wound therapy in hospitals across Cameroon, Haiti, and Ukraine — this is a mature design entering a new clinical application and market.

How It Works

From bleeding to controlled, in three steps.

Diagram of uterine suction tamponade: a tube is placed inside the uterus and connected through tubing to the VATARA pump, which applies negative pressure to help control bleeding.
  1. 1

    Place

    The care team places the intrauterine device as part of standard UST technique.

  2. 2

    Connect

    Tubing connects the device to the VATARA pump — no wall suction hookup needed.

  3. 3

    Apply Suction

    VATARA delivers steady, regulated negative pressure, helping the uterus contract and bleeding slow.

VATARA is intended for use by trained clinicians as part of a comprehensive postpartum hemorrhage protocol. Product specifications shown are for demonstration purposes as SONA Innovations prepares for the U.S. market.

The Evidence

What uterine suction tamponade is, and why the clinical data supports it.

Uterine suction tamponade (UST) is a treatment for postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. A soft tube or device is placed inside the uterus and connected to suction; the resulting negative pressure draws the uterine walls inward, helping the uterus collapse and contract around the bleeding vessels — controlling hemorrhage from the inside, rather than packing or compressing it from without.

Randomized trial: less blood loss, less pain

A 2025 randomized feasibility trial compared suction tube uterine tamponade (STUT) to standard uterine balloon tamponade (UBT) in 59 women with refractory PPH across South Africa and Colombia. The composite adverse outcome (blood loss over 1,000 mL, laparotomy, or death) occurred in 30% of the STUT group vs. 52% of the UBT group (RR 0.56, P=0.07); in the per-protocol analysis this reached statistical significance (27% vs. 54%, P=0.04). STUT was also significantly less painful for patients (RR 0.46, P=0.01).

Singata-Madliki M, Nieto-Calvache AJ, Rivera Torres LF, et al. Suction tube uterine tamponade versus uterine balloon tamponade for treatment of refractory postpartum hemorrhage: a randomized clinical feasibility trial. Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2025;170(1):326–337. doi:10.1002/ijgo.16164

Cohort study: fewer massive transfusions

A 2023 retrospective cohort of 114 patients compared a vacuum-induced tamponade device to UBT. Massive transfusion (≥4 units of packed red blood cells) occurred in just 2.8% of the vacuum group vs. 20.5% of the balloon group (P<0.01), and median estimated blood loss was lower as well (1,500 mL vs. 1,875 mL, P=0.02).

Gulersen M, Gerber RP, Rochelson B, Nimaroff M, Jones MDF. Vacuum-induced hemorrhage control versus uterine balloon tamponade for postpartum hemorrhage. J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2023;45(4):267–272. doi:10.1016/j.jogc.2023.02.017

Also in the literature

  • Hofmeyr GJ, Singata-Madliki M. Novel suction tube uterine tamponade for treating intractable postpartum haemorrhage: description of technique and report of three cases. BJOG. 2020;127(10):1280–1283. doi:10.1111/1471-0528.16169 — the first published description of the suction tamponade technique; bleeding stopped promptly in all three cases.
  • Haslinger C, Weber K, Zimmermann R. Vacuum-induced tamponade for treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. Obstet Gynecol. 2021;138(3):361–365. doi:10.1097/AOG.0000000000004510 — describes a modified balloon tamponade filled with a small volume and connected to vacuum suction.
  • Jackson FI, Dilena NJ, Abelman SH, Blitz MJ, Gerber S. Hemorrhage management using a Foley catheter for uterine suction. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2025;233(5):503–504. doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2025.06.061 — reports bleeding typically resolving within 5 minutes of applying suction.

These studies evaluate uterine suction tamponade as a technique, using a range of off-label and purpose-built devices — they are not clinical trials of the VATARA device itself. SONA Innovations is planning clinical validation of VATARA for UST as it prepares for the U.S. market.

The Team

Built by clinicians and engineers who've already deployed it in the field.

SONA Innovations is the U.S. commercial spinout of SONA Global, the nonprofit that developed and field-tested the VATARA platform.

Jerry Zhang

Jerry Zhang

Founder & CEO

Jerry is a Harvard MD/MBA student with a background in biomedical engineering, focused on expanding access to safe, affordable medical devices. He previously led strategy for SONA Global, VATARA's nonprofit originator.

Kiran Agarwal-Harding

Kiran Agarwal-Harding, MD, MPH

Founder & Chief Medical Officer

Kiran is an orthopedic trauma surgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Director of the Harvard Global Orthopaedics Collaborative. He founded SONA Global and led the development of the VATARA device.

Let's bring VATARA to the U.S. market.

We're preparing VATARA and its consumables kit for U.S. hospitals and birth centers. Reach out for a demo, partnership inquiry, or investor conversation.

jjzhang@mba2028.hbs.edu