Jorge Odon: The car mechanic who uncorked a childbirth revolution

 

A "potentially revolutionary" device to help women during difficult births has come from an unlikely source - a car mechanic from Argentina, who based the idea on a party trick.

Apart from having five children of his own, Jorge Odon had no connection with the world of obstetrics. He did however have a talent for invention.

"It comes naturally - for instance if I have a problem in my workplace I will go to bed and my head will think it through and I will wake up in the middle of the night with a solution," he says.

But until 2005, all his patents - eight in total - were in the field of mechanics, stabilisation bars, car suspensions and the like.

All this changed after Odon's staff at the garage showed him a YouTube video revealing how to extract a loose cork from inside an empty bottle. It's remarkably simple. You tilt the bottle, stuff a plastic bag down the neck and blow into the opening. The bag balloons inside the bottle, wrapping itself tightly around the cork. Then you just pull it out.

Odon immediately challenged a friend, Carlos Modena, to a bet over dinner. He placed a bottle containing a cork on the dinner table, and laid out several objects, including a bread bag. Thoroughly puzzled, Modena insisted the only way of getting the cork out would be to smash the bottle. So Odon showed him his trick, and won the bet.

But that night, as he slept next to his wife, Odon had a lightbulb moment - what if he used the same principle to help women give birth? At 04:00 he tried to wake her up. "Marcela, this cork trick could make labour easier!" he said. His wife mumbled, "That's nice," turned over and went back to sleep.

In the days that followed, Odon kept mulling it over, but found it difficult to get people to listen to him. Most thought the idea was crazy. Eventually he persuaded Modena to introduce him to his family's obstetrician.

"We went to a hospital and sat - in our suits - in a room full of expectant mothers," Odon says. "My friend was still sceptical, so when we went to see the doctor, at first he sat quite far away from me. But once he saw that the doctor was interested in this idea and quite impressed, he moved his chair closer and started saying 'we' have invented this!"