Maternal Health Journey is now live in India!

Last week, we spoke about how Nivi's guiding expecting mothers in Nigeria throughout their pregnancy to make it a safe and healthy one. You can read about it here, in case you missed it.

State of Maternal Health in India & Assam

In India, 97 mothers died for every 100,000 children born between 2018-2020. 21 of India’s 29 states are still behind the UN SDG 2030 target of MMR 70 deaths per 100,000 live births. And in the same period, 195 mothers died for every 100,000 children born in Assam - which is double the national average.

As per some reports, anaemia caused by malnutrition, inadequate family planning measures and child marriage in the state are leading causes amongst others for the high mortality rate.

Maternal Health Journey is now live in Assam on WhatsApp!

Nivi, in partnership with?Population Council Consulting?and?Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science & Research?formed a consortium in?January 2023?along with the?Federation of Obstetric & Gynaecological Societies of India?and the?Center of Northeast Studies & Policy Research. The consortium intends to promote women’s autonomy over their health seeking behaviours, enabling self-care and facilitating access to quality maternal health services across the pregnancy-postpartum continuum.

With our product askNivi, we designed a solution to equip pregnant women in the state of Assam with essential information about maternal health, and give access to private and public sector health providers. What's more? All this content can be accessed by them in English, Hindi or Assamese depending upon their preference at the time of onboarding.

Maternal Health content on askNivi India

Through the utilisation of cutting-edge chatbot technology, Nivi will facilitate regular engagement with select healthcare providers, providing crucial education, and feedback mechanisms to ensure the highest standards of care are met.

• The initial launch of the Maternal Health Journey in Assam spans 30 weeks of content, beginning at the 12th week of pregnancy. When a patient first enters the chat, askNivi collects key information, such as her due date and location, to provide a personalised experience and connect her to health facilities in her area.
• askNivi provides her with the information she needs to stay on track with her antenatal care, such as scheduled reminders for when to get a checkup and recommended clinical services at key points in her pregnancy. askNivi follows up with the patient after antenatal checkups to survey her experience with healthcare providers.
• Between antenatal checkup reminders and follow ups, askNivi continues to send pregnancy tips every week, and as her due date nears, askNivi begins to notify the patient about labor signs and how to prepare for an institutional delivery.?
• The postpartum segment of the MH Journey, which will be deployed by the end of June 2023, will continue to assist the patient with postpartum clinic visits, vaccination reminders, and neonatal care tips, like breastfeeding.

During the content development process, we worked closely with medical experts to ensure the content we delivered was clinically accurate and comprehensive, from pregnancy to postpartum. We also worked with community partners to build a content experience with high cultural relevance to our target audience and address common concerns during pregnancy.?Delivering tailored solutions is the way to solve unique challenges and achieving intended outcomes.

How are we getting pregnant women onboard the MH journey in Assam?

• We have partnered with five prominent healthcare providers in Assam to onboard expecting mothers on site. The innovative use of QR codes will enable easy access to the AskNivi WhatsApp chatbot, which will serve as a platform for ongoing support and guidance throughout the antenatal care journey.
• We are also using social media to find pregnant women in Assam by running ads on Facebook and Instagram offering support. The messaging is in Assamese language to ensure we capture the right audience and design of the ad campaigns is intended to show women that askNivi can give them help during their pregnancy. The call to action asks them to chat with askNivi to get a personalised pregnancy guide, for example - “Pregnancy can be heavy, let askNivi support you - Click to chat with askNivi” & “Protect the precious life growing inside you - Get a personalised pregnancy guide”. You are welcome to scan the QR code from the below image to try out our India Maternal Health journey in English, we’d love to hear comments/feedback from you.

We’re helping make the connections between care-seekers and care-providers to strengthen a safe, respectful and informed maternal health journey, thereby reducing risk of maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality in a state with one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the country.

Nivi's contributions can be understood with the '3 Delays Model', a conceptual framework that recognises three stages in seeking maternity care when significant delays can occur. At the first stage, there are?delays in deciding to seek care; in the second stage, there are?delays in moving to an appropriately equipped facility; and at the third stage, there are?delays in promptly being seen, once at the facility.

By engaging pregnant women throughout pregnancy, we foster deeper awareness of how to manage a healthy pregnancy with preventive care, to recognise the importance of promptly seeking care, and to empower women to overcome the Three Delays through an action-oriented approach.

The askNivi chatbot

Our?interactive chat service, askNivi, makes it simple for health consumers of all backgrounds to explore health topics of interest to them and receive guidance on the health products and services that will enable them to lead healthier lives.

Through a user's interaction with the chatbot, we're not only able to generate insights about their knowledge, attitudes and behaviours around a health topic, but also willingness to action and to pay for a product or service.

You can read more about our work with?Health Promoters,?Providers?and?Manufacturers?on our website?Nivi.io. To read more about?our customers and what do we do for them,?visit?Nivi.io/customers.

We also release a monthly substack newsletter with updates across different functions at Nivi,?check it out here!

If you've come this far and would like to explore how we can help you reach your target populations at scale,?contact us?and we'll reach out to you!