ABC for Moms

Postpartum care i.e. care after giving birth is a crucial but highly neglected component of our healthcare system. Only 10% mothers get quality postpartum care.

Our social enterprise aims to provide expert postpartum support to every woman while keeping it accessible and convenient. 

Our solution is based on a subscription model which gives access to 

1. online health consultation with experts

2. culturally relevant, evidence based newsletter

3. access to community of fellow mothers and health experts.

For the population with no access to smartphones, we are developing a hotline number with an IVR feature through which mothers can call and get their queries answered by a medical expert.

In Bangladesh, World bank currently estimates the Maternal Mortality Rate at 143 per 100,000 live births. Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of Maternal deaths, which can be easily preventable by proper education of the family and timely treatement of the mother.

Childbirth is supposed to be the happiest times in a womans life. But, around 80% mothers go through Baby blues, which is the mildest form of postpartum depression(PPD). Pakistan has the highest rates of PPD yet only 15% cases are reported, the remaining being unreported and untreated.

Postpartum care is a highly neglected component of our healthcare system. Around 90% women in Pakistan do not get any postpartum care, the remaining being at risk of issues like postpartum infection, lactation issues, postpartum depression and more severe issues like postpartum hemorrhage, which is preventable but still the leading cause of maternal mortality in the developing world.

In Bangladesh, World bank currently estimates the Maternal Mortality Rate at 143 per 100,000 live births. Postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of Maternal deaths, which can be easily prevented by proper education of the family and timely treatement of the mother.

Unicef estimates that an average of 353,000 babies are born each day around the world. That is the number of new moms that we aim to bring a positive impact on.

Our target audience is pregnant ladies and new mothers. We serve mothers who are unable to access postpartum care on their own due to location, lack of services, lack of specialists, etc. In order to understand the needs of our target population, we are launching a pilot postpartum care program in 1-2 villages of interior Sindh in Karachi, Pakistan. We hope to collect data during this pilot to understand how may women are benefitting from our hotline system and how we an improve the system to better serve mothers in postpartum care issues. We hope to expand our program based on the feedback and conclusion we draw from our pilot. This solution will address mothers needs because it will remove the barriers of access to postpartum care. Mothers can simply call our hotline to ask about any issue or any questions they have. In this way, we can address preventable health issues before they can have detrimental impacts on mothers and their infants. For instance, this system will be able to provide guidance to mothers experiencing hemorrhage before they suffer too much blood loss. 

 For rural, low-income populations, we are developing an interactive voice response (IVR) hotline which will promptly connect rural area mothers to health experts so they may address any health issues mom and baby may be experiencing post-birth. Mothers will be able to call into a hotline where an operator will redirect their call to the appropriate party based on the caller's concern. If their concern is similar to a concern answered before, mothers will be directed to a pre-recorded answer which will provide them with all the details of a physician or health care specialist's consultation. Specialists including gynecologists, psychologists, and lactation specialists will be on the other end of the line guiding mothers to care and advising them based on their concerns.  An effective hotline can help catch problems before they become serious or widespread. This system provides project staff with practical suggestions/feedback that allows them to be more accountable, transparent, and responsive to mothers. Essentially, the system improves as it is used more. Multiple projects in a country can centralize health services functions to reduce costs and enhance the overall effectiveness. The technology we are working with, Interactive voice response, is an intelligent phone software that helps organize recorded messages and directs callers to the appropriate person based on the answers they provide to automated questions.

For the population that has access to smartphones, our solution is based on a subscription model which gives access to 

1. online health consultation with experts through a web portal.

2. culturally relevant, evidence based newsletter.

3. access to community of fellow mothers and health experts.

We have had several health awareness sessions for tbe underserved population. We did a reproductive health and Pinktober(breast cancer awareness) session for mothers at a welfare school. We catered around 25 mothers from low income backgrounds and presented them self care giveaways aswell. Also we have started a series called "Moms Monthly rejuve" which is a casual meetup for moms with a health expert every month so that they can get their queries answered. 35 mothers have been benefitted with it uptil now.