Together for a safe pregnancy.

There is a wide gap in maternal mortality rates between developed and developing countries, where it is 14 times higher. Inequality in access to prenatal health services stands out as a key factor to explain why developing countries remain lagged on maternal mortality. 

Embrazados.co is a digital platform that helps women have a safe pregnancy. It quickly identifies health conditions and guides them accordingly.  Family and healthcare providers can get on board to learn, support and offer personalized services. Information, advice and reminders are given to women and progress is tracked through a dashboard. 

The use of technology allows us to reach a greater number of pregnant women and help them have a safe pregnancy. Compared to traditional methods, Embarazados.co guides pregnant women at a significantly lower cost. Over time it is expected to reach thousands of pregnant women, not only in Colombia, but other countries of Latin America.

Only in Colombia, there were 485 cases of maternal mortality in 2017, while fetal deaths reached 44,488 in the same year. Factors such as low adherence to prenatal care plans have been found key increasing the risk of complications during childbirth leading to health complications and deaths.  This risk increases when the mother  has low resources or belong to of a minority.

This is why improving levels of adherence to health care plans designed specifically for pregnant women, regardless of their background is imperative. it is necessary for them and the support network to be involved in the process and to be able to identify possible risk factors and emergency alerts in order to  take them other to an emergency service at the right moment, since this can contribute to the reduction of health complications in pregnancy, as well as mortality. 

Now, this is a scenario is not limited to our country, it’s a problem that is happening in different countries of Latin America and the world, which is why we firmly believe that our strategy can be replicated globally, contributing to improving the maternal health of thousands of women and building environments of accompaniment, cooperation and solidarity with them

Embarazados.co is a web platform that provides pregnant women with a weekly and personalized care plan that guides them throughout pregnancy and help them stay healthy and have good care of the baby.  

The first step is to register, and based on the information given, it then generates a personalized care route depending on different risk factors identified. The route is composed by relevant information the mother needs to know, notifications and reminders on appointments, controls and tests needed at each stage of pregnancy. Women may choose to allow family and healthcare providers to have access to the platform so support and further services can be offered. The elements described above, facilitate prevention and treatment of risk factors during pregnancy, which contributes to reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. 

By using the platform, pregnant women learn to identify and report warning signs that may indicate a complication. Reliable advice and recommendations are given immediately after an alert is reported.  As with alarm signs, access barriers to services can be reported and are measures are taken in real time to prevent possible health complications. Further information about pregnancy is available through multimedia content that has been included on the website. 

Our main target population are women of childbearing age, specifically those between the ages of 15 and 45 who are part of vulnerable groups and who are generally unaware that they have the right to get medical services during their pregnancies. Although Colombia has a subsidized health system for people with fewer resources, in many cases mothers don't access them due to lack of knowledge of their availability. We’re aware that there are people who don’t have a permanent internet connection, so we also have a SMS service that allows reminders to be made without the need for internet. This way, we're able to bring perinatal care closer to populations that are usually unprotected and, due to it, are at greater risk at delivery. However, our platform is not limited to serving this group, and any woman interested in keeping track of their process, as well as receiving reminders, can access Embarazados.co.

Also, we want to convey the message that the pregnant woman is not alone during this process, and that her support network should be involved, which is why we offer the option of including another person  and the corresponding healthcare provider to get the same information as her.

Around the world, thousands of women die daily due to complications in childbirth, in many cases these complications could’ve been prevented with an adequate process of education for the mother, as well as a follow-up process that reminds her of each step she must follow throughout her pregnancy. We present a useful and practical alternative that allows pregnant women to be more aware of the process, regardless of the crisis, offering safe routes, adequate protocols and clear information to ensure a healthy pregnancy and a safe delivery regardless of the pandemic.

We consider our solution to be innovative due to the fact that it allows a quick identification of the mother’s health conditions and stage of her pregnancy. Any risk or complication that may arise during the pregnancy, can be properly addressed through adequate monitoring and channeling to the corresponding health services whenever necessary. This allows for timely action and health care for both mother and baby. This is easier due to the use of information and telecommunication technologies, which allows us to obtain basic information and open a permanent communication with ur users. 

The use of technology allows attracting a greater number of pregnant women at a reduced cost compared to traditional methods of informing pregnant women about pregnancy care. This tool is a complement to the care route that facilitates access to information, channels emergency services and improves adherence. 

As more and more pregnant women use the platform, the system will be able to analyze aggregated data that will be a source of valuable information for governments and the industry to adapt public policies and offer products and services that meet the mothers evolving needs. 

It is expected to reach thousands of pregnant women in Colombia and Latin America.

The platform uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) to bring prenatal health services closer to pregnant users who are in need of this services. Our goal is to ensure that any pregnant woman will get an adequate follow-up throughout this process, as well as involving their family in order to reduce the chances of any complication during childbirth. To achieve this goal, our main tools are multimedia content to educate the mother-to-be, as well as text messages and other technologies to communicate with our users to strengthen the development of self-care habits and the empowerment of women regarding their health. 

The world Health Organization, in alliance with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), presented a report in 2014 in which they emphasized the relevance that ICTs have taken in the health care of pregnant women as well as newborns. Among the different strategies that stand out, web-based remote monitoring initiatives and surveillance processes during pregnancy take special relevance, due to the fact that those can be of great help in order to keep track of progress and important events during the pregnancy, with the aim of keeping a close monitoring of both, the mother and the baby’s the health. In addition, it has been seen that this type of digital initiatives help increase the involvement of people in the mother's closer circle, such as her family and partner, in the whole process, by making it easier to educate them about pregnancy and the care that they must be had to guarantee a healthy delivery for the mother and the baby. 

Most complications during and following pregnancy are preventable. Yet, maternal and child mortality rates are a major public policy challenge worldwide, and more so in middle and low-income countries. As continuously expressed by the WHO, availability of reliable information and education for women, as well as access to proper health care services and trained professionals are fundamental aspects to address the challenge. 

 Embarazados.co does that, it informs and educates pregnant women on pregnancy care and health care services they are entitled to. This, in turn, increases awareness on women about pregnancy care and empowers them to adopt healthy practices and habits.  

We start by gathering information to identify their health condition. Then, Embarazados.co provides them with introductory information on pregnancy and health care services associated to it. Women share their progress with us and through our interactive technology, our health care team responds with accurate and often personalized recommendations and reminders to motivate them to keep adhered to the process, which in fact meets the standards of the national safe pregnancy route, created by the Ministry of Health.  

In addition, health care providers can get connected through different ways, starting at a basic level where users are provided with general information about their health care insurances, and going all the way to a scenario where health care providers are permanently connected and able to monitor the progress of their affiliates. This in fact, helps health care providers to offer a better service and (if allowed by users) use information to make decisions on how they are offering their services. 

Although connectivity is an issue in different parts of Colombia, our mix between web-based and SMS user experience has allowed us to have a broader outreach and benefit both rural and urban communities.  

In its almost 2 years of existence, Embarazados.co  has received over 47,000 unique users that came looking for information and guidance related to pregnancy. 77% of them are women and 23% are men. From the total users that visited Embarazados.co, 4,000 women have registered and used our platform to have a better pregnancy care and get educated on all relevant topics during and following pregnancy. 

In five years, we expect to have over 250,000 visiting users and 25,000 women and people in their close network registered and actively using it annually. 

Our short-term goals start by increasing the traffic and registration rate in the platform. Connected to it, we seek to measure adherence in greater detail and set long-term detailed goals related to it. With the underlying information gathered for the 2 mentioned elements we will conduct a preliminary impact analysis on how exactly we are helping towards reducing maternal and children mortality rate and then check health improvements associated to our services. 

Within the next five years, based on achieving our short-term goals, we expect to gather additional funding to strengthen our operation and scale Embarazados.co up and expand to at least 3 countries in Latin America.