Johannesburg - Expectant women can now download a cellphone app to keep tabs on their progress through pregnancy, and for a year beyond childbirth.
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi recently launched the cellphone app that will connect women to the public health system.
He said MomConnect would allow healthcare workers to deliver regular messages to pregnant mothers and those with newborn babies, reminding them of appointments and warnings on what they should and should not be doing during that time.
“During the different stages of pregnancy they will be told what to do, where to go and what to avoid, and for a year after they deliver, messages will be about the baby and what mothers have to do and remember what baby should be avoiding,” he said.
Mothers would get reminders on their antenatal check-up dates, while immunisation schedules would also be sent to them via their cellphones, and based on the history of mother and child, reminders of what they should be eating or avoiding.
He said the programme formed part of efforts to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, in particular the three which touched on health.
Goals four, five and six spoke about reducing the child mortality rate, improving maternal health and combating HIV and Aids, TB and malaria, the minister added.
The development of MomConnect through which mothers could be connected to the department had been a dream Motsoaledi had had for a while, and partnerships had been formed to realise it.
Four major cellphone companies, Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C, have given the department a 50 percent discount for the use of their networks for MomConnect so that mothers can use it for free, while the department pays for the costs incurred.
An initial R60-million was injected into the programme, with the US government giving R49m, Johnson & Johnson R5m, while ELMA Philanthropies offered R5m.
US ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard said the technology would encourage pregnant women to attend their routine antenatal clinics.
The text messages would also provide feedback to the department, Motsoaledi said. “We will be able to identify problems in communities, districts and provinces from the number of complaints we get.”
The Star