BabyMed is an integrated and innovative mobile health platform that provides easy and affordable access to reliable maternal and child health care information and services.
The major aim is to empower pregnant women and their partners to take the steps necessary for a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery. The SMS text and voice messaging service integrates all healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood topics under one platform. This includes early and complete ANC attendance, malaria prevention, the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), individual birth planning and safe delivery. The text messaging platform allows pregnant women, birth supporters, and others interested in safe motherhood to receive information and reminders about a healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood at subsidized and affordable rates
The platform has made easily understandable maternal health information readily accessible to expectant mothers, and also to use the efficacy of ICT to provide maternal health care communication to expectant mothers in the remotest locations.
In future, we will also set up Maternal Health Corners in each of the facilities that we will partner with. The Maternal Health Corners will be made up of a set of computers that have been programmed with content (audio, video, and text) for the benefit of health workers. We will also institute a monthly block knowledge sharing session that brings together all expectant mothers registered at a facility for information sharing in a group. These sessions are led by local midwives or community health workers
Providing high-quality antenatal care (ANC) information during pregnancy is crucial to keeping mothers and babies healthy and reducing maternal and newborn mortality rates in Kenya. A key component of high quality ANC information – that can effectively reduce chances of maternal and newborn mortality – is informing pregnant women of proper nutrition and care and of signs of complications. Encouraging women to seek care and treatment can save lives, in particular if they observe danger signs. Unfortunately, women living in rural areas of Kenya are significantly less likely to have been informed of signs of pregnancy complications than women living in urban areas.
Therefore, BabyMed is part of our larger goal to not only build awareness and educate but also drive action. Pregnant women and mothers may delay seeking care or taking appropriate preventative or curative action; may not be able to access appropriate health services; or they may access health facilities unnecessarily thereby increasing the load on the already overburdened health system. Knowing where to go for care and when are integral to maximizing health care access and utilization and reducing maternal and child mortality. BabyMed aims to increase knowledge and improve health seeking behavior among pregnant women, guardians of young children and women of childbearing age
The primary expected result of this platform is improved access to ante-natal care (ANC), post-natal care (PNC), institutional delivery and emergency obstetric care, increases contact with health facilities through ante-natal care (ANC), and increases institutional delivery and hence by proxy, professional care at birth.
For first-time mothers, the information delivered increases their knowledge, helps to develop their confidence, and connects them to life-saving commodities. While phones cannot and should not replace doctors, nurses, or community health workers, the ubiquity of these devices offers new mothers the opportunity to have a healthy pregnancy and give her baby the best start to life
