In the previous two blogs, I presented frightening state of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and mHealth solutions addressing it. In the upcoming two blogs, I will address MDG 5 and MDG 4 and various mHealth initiatives.
MDG 5: improve maternal health.
Target 5.A.: Reduce by ¾ (between 1990 and 2015) maternal mortality ratio
Target 5.B.: Achieve (by 2015) universal access to reproductive health
According to WHO, “up to 358 000 women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth. Most of them die because they had no access to skilled routine and emergency care. Since 1990, some countries in Asia and Northern Africa have more than halved maternal mortality. There has also been progress in sub-Saharan Africa. But here, unlike in the developed world where a woman’s life time risk of dying during or following pregnancy is 1 in 4300, the risk of maternal death is very high at 1 in 31.” Additionally while maternal mortality has nearly halved since 1990, the levels are far removed from the 2015 target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by ¾.
Mobile penetration is higher than ever in the developing world, and with mobile phones having a greater reach than traditional media channels, mHealth offers an unprecedented opportunity to touch people at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), which is also the case in addressing and improving maternal health.
The Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) is a global initiative that seeks to improve the health and lives of new and expectant mothers in emerging markets through the use of mobile technology by delivering crucial health information to mothers. MAMA currently has projects in South Africa, India and Bangladesh, but the content that MAMA uses is freely shared throughout the world. The content can be accessed by different mobile technologies, i.e. in Africa 5 different channels are used: mobi site, SMS, USSD, MXit and voice (you can read more here). Through these channels, MAMA aims to reach women with different income levels and with the variety of mobile phones used.
MAMA is all about educating and raising awareness of mothers through various means of mobile technology, and there are other global mHealth solutions with similar goals to MAMA, such as text4baby, Bebemama, Mobile Baby, SMS baby, and Baby Info.
Somehow different is MomConnect, recently launched in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, by the Provincial Department of Health, with support from UNICEF, Praekelt Foundation and Virtual Purple, that sends SMS reminders to HIV-positive expectant mothers with the content of critical clinic visits during pregnancy, and also check-ups and immunizations post-delivery until the child is 18 months old.
mothers2mothers, on the other hand, not only raises awareness and educates but also addresses the enormous problem of stigma and lack of health workers in distant rural areas. The programme uses, Mentor Mothers—mothers living with HIV themselves—who are trained to provide life-saving health education and psychosocial support to their peers and are connected via mobile phones, helping them share information. Mentor Mothers become role models by putting a face to empowered and healthy HIV-positive women, as also by providing support to all mothers. Operating in 7 countries with 611 sites, there are 14,930 Mentor Mothers and 242,000 pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV enrolled in mothers2mothers programmes in 2011.
Another interesting initiative is through the Global Health Media Project, which designs and distributes high-quality educational clinical videos for frontline providers in low-resource settings. Currently, the project offers videos that provide information about newborn care, as well as cholera. Videos are distributed via smart phones, video streaming online and DVDs, and can be used as complementary teaching tools in training sessions or as stand-alone health care references for those without access to organised training programs.
Like those mentioned above, there are many other mHealth solutions addressing MDG5, but perhaps more importantly, there are various new mHealth initiatives being developed as we speak — in collaboration with key players of the mHealth ecosystem, including mobile operators, governments, NGOs, private sector companies and donors.
If you are interested in various mHealth initiatives, please have a look at the mHealth Tracker here. If you are aware of any other mHealth initiative that we are not listing on our mHealth tracker we would be very keen to learn more about it. In addition you can have a look at the GSMA report published at Mobile Health Summit: Using mHealth to Support Universal Health Access.
Photo Credits: © WHO/P. Virot [Malipur Maternity Home, Delhi, India]; © UNDP Brazil [MDG icon];