prenatal care
Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Jan 10, 2012
Where can a pregnant woman find low-cost prenatal care in her area? How should she position a car seatbelt to best protect herself and her baby? Should she get a flu shot? During pregnancy, expectant mothers can have lots of questions; Text4Baby seeks to keep pregnant women informed about pregnancy issues through regular SMS updates sent to their mobile phones.
Developed by the national Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition and mobile health service provider Voxiva, Text4Baby uses SMS to send free health news and information to US subscribers. Started in February 2010, the program now has (as of November 28, 2011) about 258,000 people enrolled.
About 24 million messages have been sent on a variety of subjects like labor and delivery, nutrition, immunizations, mental health, developmental milestones, family violence, physical activity, and breastfeeding. Messages are timed based on delivery dates, and are available in both English and Spanish by texting either "baby" (for English) or "bebe" (for Spanish) to the US shortcode 511411.
| Text4Baby: Maternal Health Messages Via SMS data sheet 2467 Views |
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Posted by CorinneRamey on Sep 22, 2009
In India, especially in rural areas, men are often in charge of the family mobile phone. But Subhi Quaraishi, CEO of ZMQ Software Systems, thinks that phones are a great way to reach women as well.
"The goal of our program is to use technology to empower women," said Quaraishi, of ZMQ's new pilot program.
ZMQ is currently running a program to provide women with information on prenatal care via SMS. The messages, which are all in Hindi, contain information on vaccinations, exercise, diet, medication, and how to deal with emergencies that arrive during pregnancy. This is the only program of its kind in India, although other programs -- like a Grameen Bank sponsored program in Ghana -- also use SMS to give advice on prenatal care.
