Supporting Maternal Health Education in Developing Countries Using Mobile Phones-Results of a Pilot Study.

With the high penetration of mobile technology in developing countries, researchers have started initiatives to fight maternal mortality with mobile phones and have indeed shown progress. However there is room for more research since maternal mortality is still high in developing countries. Moreover, most initiatives focus on helping health workers to improve service delivery, leaving room for research on how to engage mothers. We therefore propose a system prototype that supports pre-natal and postnatal healthcare by involving the women. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data which was used to generate user and system requirements for the system. Based on the requirements, SMS gateways were evaluated to identify a suitable base for developing the system. The system was evaluated via usability and functionality testing. Results indicate that the implementation may be a feasible way to extend maternal health education to women and to reduce maternal mortality in the long run.