How mobile phone alerts are saving lives of mothers in Africa

 

Foreign Affairs secretary Amina Mohammed speaks at an event held to explain Kenya’s economic diplomacy and its outcomes in Nairobi August 27. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE 

By SARAH OOKO, sooko@ke.nationmedia.com

When Mercy Mueni’s one-month old baby started having breathing difficulties, she assumed the discomfort was due to Nairobi’s chilly weather and decided to cover him with more blankets.

The baby died shortly afterwards, with post-mortem results showing pneumonia as the cause of death.

A year later, 26-year-old Lusanda Sentiwe – living miles away in Johannesburg, South Africa – realised that her three-month-old baby was breathing fast while eliciting weird sounds from the throat. She thought it was a flu and did not bother much.

But as she was just about to leave the child’s room, her phone beeped alerting her of an incoming text message.

It was a message from Mama that said: “If your child is breathing too fast, rush her to the nearest clinic.”

Ms Sentiwe immediately followed the instructions despite panicking all the way to the hospital. Luckily, her baby girl Notandu Sentiwe survived, thanks to the timely intervention of her digital guardian angel— Mama.

Mama –Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action – is an innovative public-private partnership that delivers vital health information to expectant mothers through the use of mobile technologies.

This initiative, hosted by the United Nations Foundation, targets developing nations—such as Kenya —facing a high burden of child and maternal mortality.

It was launched on Mother’s Day 2011 by the former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Even though Mama is currently being piloted in South Africa, India and Bangladesh, there are plans to scale it up to other African nations like Kenya.

The technology would benefit women like Ms Mueni —who believes that if only the digital ‘saviour’ had been available in Kenya, her baby boy would still be alive.

Such a technology would help avert the more than 7,000 women deaths that occur annually due to pregnancy-related complications.

It would also reduce the high infant mortality rate in Kenya, where one out of every 19 children born is likely to die before the age of one.

Moreover, with the proportion of Kenyans using mobile phones currently at about 80 per cent, this provides a big window of opportunity for the country to make use of mobile technologies to address health problems.

The Mama mobile messages —sent during pregnancy and for one year after child birth— correspond to a mother’s age and stage of pregnancy. Different messages are sent to subscribers depending on a child’s age.

During pregnancy, mothers receive a message like this two or three times weekly: “Dizziness, headaches and tiredness are all symptoms of low iron. Take a daily iron and folic acid supplement. This should help.”

 ron deficiency is a leading cause of maternal mortality in Kenya.

After birth, Mama subscribers receive: “Look out for signs of illness in your baby. If your baby vomits more than five times during a day, go to the clinic. Give her plenty of extra breastfeeds.”

Ms Sentiwe notes: “Having Mama messages make you feel like there’s a caregiver watching over you and the baby all the time.”

Ms Stephanie Bowen, Mama communications manager says that the Mama mobile messages are free of charge and can be downloaded from the website by organisations keen on using them to address maternal and child health problems in their countries.

Already, a few organisations in the country access these messages, using them to educate mothers.

“I didn’t know that such a thing existed, but when it comes here, it will be such a blessing to mothers,” Ms Mueni said.

Aside from its obvious health benefits, Mama can also offer great investment opportunities for corporate organisations.

By incorporating Mama messages in various services or products, they will easily appeal to the women market thus increasing sales.

Similarly, mobile technology or communication companies can still generate profit by sending Mama text messages to millions of women in Kenya at a subsidised cost.

Vodafone has tapped into this market in South Africa. It hosts the Mama mobi-website on its operator platform (Vodafone Live!) and provides free access to Mama content to its more than 25 million customers.

Vodafone also covers the cost for 6,000 women to receive Mama messages directly into their mobile phones.

Richard Ng’ethe, the country representative and strategic information advisor for Futures Group (a company that specialises in electronic health technologies) said that mobile phones or m-health allows medical practitioners to communicate easily to many patients at once and to monitor their progress.

For instance, Futures Group developed an electronic medical record (EMR) system at Kenyatta National Hospital called ‘IQ Care’ which sends text messages to HIV positive pregnant women reminding them to come for medical appointments, pick their medication, and attend recommended ante-natal care visits.

“This has played a key role in reducing mother to child transmission of HIV,” says Mr Ng’ethe.

He notes that just as M-Pesa revolutionised Kenya’s financial sector, so will m-health technologies if properly harnessed in the health sector.