Mobile health app educates Ethiopian moms

mobile health pregnant expectant mothers

The “Safe Delivery App” offer mothers across the country vital and potentially lifesaving advice.

A new mobile health app has now been launched in Ethiopia in the hopes of improving the survival and medical wellbeing of moms and their new babies by offering lifesaving strategies when things take a turn for the worse.

Nearly 9 in 10 Ethiopian births occur at home following pregnancies with limited or no medical assistance.

The hope of the developers of the Safe Delivery App is that this mobile health service will improve the level of medical support available to these women when things go wrong. The application was created by the Maternity Foundation. It is meant to offer women and those helping them to give birth simplified guidance and animated videos that instruct them in common emergency situations. These include several forms of birthing complications, hemorrhaging, infections and even newborn resuscitation.

This mobile health app helps to elevate the knowledge of women and midwives in emergency situations during birth.

mobile health pregnant expectant mothersAccording to the program manager in the Horn of Africa state at the Maternity Foundation, Mesfin Wondafrash, midwives are both knowledgeable and skilled in assisting with childbirth. “But they may not apply the right procedures when complications arise — even simple complications.”

However, this mobile app is designed to change that situation, because launching it can offer birth attendants vital guidelines that can improve the survival and health of the mother and child. Midwives are typically traditionally educated but might not be aware of simple modern procedures that are known to save lives in emergency birthing situations. This type of medical support is expected to be especially helpful in rural areas where mothers are least likely to receive support from a doctor and more likely to receive their assistance from family members or a local woman.

The mobile health app can be pre-installed on a smartphone and functions without any network connectivity or WiFi. Having it ready and handy in order to assist a woman who has gone into labor can make sure the right action is taken right away, when a matter of minutes can make the difference between life and death.

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